So, this just happened yesterday in Brooklyn. Cuomo is pushing for anti-gun legislation. Last I'd heard it was critical condition, but this article said he died. Sorry, on a cell phone, so copy pasting full article isn't an option for me right now. Apologies to the work blocked.
Violence before the West Indian Day Parade in New York has left one man dead and a top aide to the state governor fighting for his life.
Carey Gabay, a lawyer working for Governor Andrew Cuomo, was caught in crossfire at a pre-parade event early on Monday.
A 24-year-old man was also shot and killed in a different Brooklyn neighbourhood in a separate incident.
Last year, a man was killed and several wounded near the parade.
This time the violence erupted at the J'Ouvert march, a pre-parade celebration which starts before dawn.
At 03:40 local time (08:40 GMT), the 43-year-old Mr Gabay, first deputy counsel to the governor, was struck in the head by a bullet as he walked down the street with his brother. He was in a critical condition.
Mr Cuomo described him as a beautiful man who was giving back to his community. Mr Gabay's wife is expecting their first child.
"I'm the governor of the state of New York, and there's not a thing I can do," Mr Cuomo told reporters after visiting his employee at Kings County Hospital.
"There's not a thing I can say, and there's nothing I can do. And sometimes it just hurts."
No arrests have made been, police said.
The main parade itself went ahead on Monday, attended by thousands including Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose wife Chirlane McCray is of Caribbean descent.
A terrible loss of life, especially as his child will never know their father. Given Mr. Cuomo's politics I don't think anyone is surprised at his calls for yet more gun control.
Co'tor Shas wrote: And the thing is, that if this was a nutter motivated by the gun control push, that it's just proving his point for him.
Motive has not yet been established. I believe that this parade has a history of random violence occurring during the festivities.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Latest reports indicate that a MAC10 was used, and that there was a shoot out between rival gangs. While it is sad that the aide was killed it is also very lucky that no one else was hurt.
So the legitimate question here would be, "would gun control legislation actually have stopped this, considering it was a shoot-out between two criminal elements?"
Criteria: Law abiding citizens follow the law (a bit self-defining there, sorry). Criminals are criminals because they are the antithesis of a law abiding citizen, hence they ignore/flaunt the law.
My take is that bad guys will do bad things no matter how many laws are on the books.
Sounds like the vic was a real stand-up sort of a fellow, hopefully the perps get their comeuppance.
xraytango wrote: So the legitimate question here would be, "would gun control legislation actually have stopped this, considering it was a shoot-out between two criminal elements?"
Probably not, especially considering New York already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country.
NYC has severe gun problems (which is to say guns in the hands of criminals). Legislation that went in, what, 2 years ago probably wouldn't have even put a dent in it, even if it were all guns are illigal.
xraytango wrote: So the legitimate question here would be, "would gun control legislation actually have stopped this, considering it was a shoot-out between two criminal elements?"
The firearm used was a fully automatic weapon. I doubt very much that the perpetrator of this act had acquired it lawfully and filed the correct paperwork with the ATF. Furthermore it appears that there was a total of 30 rounds fired from a number of weapons, each in different hands. That also negates an argument that reduced magazine capacity would have prevented this loss of life. Would a background check have worked? Given that this was a Class 3 firearm, without the correct paperwork being filed, and in the possession of a criminal gang (and likely by someone with a criminal history) I can't see this firearm going through an NICS check.
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Hordini wrote: Probably not, especially considering New York already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country.
Correct. And the SAFE Act has been far from the success that the Governor hoped that it would be.
Silent Puffin? wrote: Someone gets killed with a machine pistol and the usual Dakkites use this as an excuse to bang the 'gun control is useless' drum. Stay classy Dakka.
I am sorry that you mis-read out intentions. As the Governor who's aide was killed injected the topic into the discussion from the outset I think that any discussion would have touched on it at some stage. I would like to think that my comment came across as intended, which was an honest examination of the topic - not simply 'gun control is useless'
Do you feel that Governor Cuomo was right to use this event as an excuse for more gun control?
Silent Puffin? wrote: Someone gets killed with a machine pistol and the usual Dakkites use this as an excuse to bang the 'gun control is useless' drum. Stay classy Dakka.
If someone is brazen enough to be using an actual machine pistol (if that is actually the case), then some would say the point was proven rather well. Automatic weapons like machine pistols are illegal to possess under New York City law, New York State law, and extremely tightly regulated at the Federal level. Someone's looking at felony charges from every conceivable level of government just for mere possession, enough to send them away for most of the rest of their life, not to mention actually committing murder with one.
Silent Puffin? wrote: Someone gets killed with a machine pistol and the usual Dakkites use this as an excuse to bang the 'gun control is useless' drum. Stay classy Dakka.
Okay.
<sarcasm>
I don't believe any of this. Guns are almost impossible to get permits for in New York and there's no way they'd give them to gang members. Therefore no "rival gang members" could possibly be using guns in any sort of shootout as that would be illegal. Gun control is effective and it works.
Silent Puffin? wrote: Someone gets killed with a machine pistol and the usual Dakkites use this as an excuse to bang the 'gun control is useless' drum. Stay classy Dakka.
xraytango asked the legitimate question of whether or not stricter gun control would or could have prevented this, and some of us did our best to answer the question in good faith. That hardly qualifies as "the usual Dakkaites used this as an excuse to bang the 'gun control is useless' drum."
I'm guessing you're not very familiar with how incredibly tightly regulated actual machine pistols already are in the US.
I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't an actual full auto MAC-10, but rather a semi-automatic version of it. I could be wrong though.
Yeah, it could easily be a semi-auto version. People who aren't familiar with what full-auto actually sounds like can easily mistake a semi with a fast trigger finger for what they think full auto sounds like.
Especially since a full auto MAC-10 would basically empty its entire mag in less than a second. You'd never ever hear the individual rounds being fired. All you'd hear would be a single "BRRT".
Hordini wrote: I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't an actual full auto MAC-10, but rather a semi-automatic version of it. I could be wrong though.
Grey Templar wrote: Yeah, it could easily be a semi-auto version. People who aren't familiar with what full-auto actually sounds like can easily mistake a semi with a fast trigger finger for what they think full auto sounds like.
Especially since a full auto MAC-10 would basically empty its entire mag in less than a second. You'd never ever hear the individual rounds being fired. All you'd hear would be a single "BRRT".
The investigators identified the firearm used as a MAC-10 after it was recovered.
Correct. And the SAFE Act has been far from the success that the Governor hoped that it would be.
It depends on what your think the purpose was. The way I see it, it defiantly fulfilled it purpose (getting the D's riled up).
On a side note, no super-strict gun control is ever really going to work without it being nation-wide (at least without checkpoints on the boarder crossings) and even then it would take even longer for the criminal supply to dry up. I'd say even if the 2nd amendment was repealed and UK like gun laws were put into effect, it'd be at least a decade until we'd be anywhere near to wear the UK is now in terms of the ambient gun supply.
Co'tor Shas wrote: And the thing is, that if this was a nutter motivated by the gun control push, that it's just proving his point for him.
Motive has not yet been established. I believe that this parade has a history of random violence occurring during the festivities.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Latest reports indicate that a MAC10 was used, and that there was a shoot out between rival gangs. While it is sad that the aide was killed it is also very lucky that no one else was hurt.
If so, that's the sad irony of the situation. Gang violence is the core problem, but that will get ignored in favor of more politically popular and emotionally appealing anti-gun measures, which in turn will get gridlocked in the political system and even if they do pass, won't have any meaningful effect on the gang violence, which just leaves the whole thing open to happening again.
DarkLink wrote: If so, that's the sad irony of the situation. Gang violence is the core problem, but that will get ignored in favor of more politically popular and emotionally appealing anti-gun measures, which in turn will get gridlocked in the political system and even if they do pass, won't have any meaningful effect on the gang violence, which just leaves the whole thing open to happening again.
Actually blaming gang violence means that a politician's record on crime is open to scrutiny, and that their previous claims on lowering crime were not true/effective as they had claimed. It also requires time, effort, energy, and finances. Also the inevitable backlash against law enforcement, and the politician who proposed cracking down on crime. Given that this outbreak of gang violence occurred during a West Indian cultural celebration it appears that the perpetrators may have been from a minority population which may bring the issues of racism into the discussion.
Instead it is much easier, more expedient, and cheaper to rail against something that you know won't work - but that your base appreciates and you can always blame the Evil NRA when the newest "common sense" gun control measure, that would have done nothing to prevent the attack, gets nowhere.
On a side note, just as many people were stabbed as shot, it looks like. The lawyer was shot and killed, two others were moderately/mildy injured by gunshots, one person was stabbed to death, another was stabbed and badly wounded but is stable, and another had less critical stab wounds.
xraytango wrote: So the legitimate question here would be, "would gun control legislation actually have stopped this, considering it was a shoot-out between two criminal elements?"
Probably not, especially considering New York already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country.
IF there are gonna be gun control laws, they have to be at the national level, as the 'Iron Pipeline' and other trafficking lines largely rendered the idea of state by state gun control utterly meaningless. All New York's strict gun control laws have produced is a lucrative business in shipping guns into the state from further south, where gun laws are more laxed.
Actually blaming gang violence means that a politician's record on crime is open to scrutiny, and that their previous claims on lowering crime were not true/effective as they had claimed. It also requires time, effort, energy, and finances. Also the inevitable backlash against law enforcement, and the politician who proposed cracking down on crime. Given that this outbreak of gang violence occurred during a West Indian cultural celebration it appears that the perpetrators may have been from a minority population which may bring the issues of racism into the discussion.
Instead it is much easier, more expedient, and cheaper to rail against something that you know won't work - but that your base appreciates and you can always blame the Evil NRA when the newest "common sense" gun control measure, that would have done nothing to prevent the attack, gets nowhere.
Actually, I think a "good" politician could still blame gang violence and still not be all that open to scrutiny. Basically, they could say that yes, this was gang violence and that's bad, but look at how much crime on the whole has decreased... That includes gang crimes.
Much of the rest of it I agree with... In the current environment, I think it may be quite difficult to pull off declaring "war" on gangs, when you already have a public image problem surrounding police shootings and other deaths at the hands of LEOs.
Sadly the solution for this particular scenario comes down to better policing by NYPD's gang task force. One would think they'd have intel on this since it was obviously a planned attack by both gangs.
A Mac-10??? Was the shooter an O.G. throwback from the late 80's? I thought that a modified glock-17 was the gat of choice for today's upwardly mobile criminals?
DarkLink wrote: On a side note, just as many people were stabbed as shot, it looks like. The lawyer was shot and killed, two others were moderately/mildy injured by gunshots, one person was stabbed to death, another was stabbed and badly wounded but is stable, and another had less critical stab wounds.
Isla Vista Syndrome; if there is an incident where as many people are stabbed as are shot then the stabbings are ignored as if they never happened.
Co'tor Shas wrote: And the thing is, that if this was a nutter motivated by the gun control push, that it's just proving his point for him.
Not really. If anything, it proves that there is a legitimate need for self-defense.
So he's walking down the road, and someone unexpectedly shoots him in the head... Where exactly was there any opportunity for him to defend himself? And considering these people were injured in "crossfire", that would suggest at least one gang might have already been shooting back in "self defence" (which is their human right allegedly, and a gun the best tool for the job). I don't see how adding more guns and more crossfire to that situation, could have produced fewer casualties.
xraytango wrote: So the legitimate question here would be, "would gun control legislation actually have stopped this, considering it was a shoot-out between two criminal elements?"
Perhaps if the gun control and been in place 50 years ago, across all the states, in tandem with a drive to get illegal guns off the streets, then you could probably arrive at a situation where it's very difficult for petty criminals to obtain guns (legally or illegally).
This seems to be where the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument falls flat on its face anyway. I certainly never heard of anyone getting "stabbed in the crossfire".
Smacks wrote: This seems to be where the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument falls flat on its face anyway. I certainly never heard of anyone getting "stabbed in the crossfire".
Hell, there's a reason it's called crossfire - you don't tend to fire knives!
Yes, there are such things as ballistic knives, but they're very rare and very illegal. Shut up. :-P
My question is if people who want gun control just want to stop gun violence or violent crime as a whole. Because I doubt strict US gun control will make street gangs just give up and go home.
Smacks wrote: This seems to be where the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument falls flat on its face anyway. I certainly never heard of anyone getting "stabbed in the crossfire".
Really? I'm pretty sure that the reports were of two gangs shooting each other, and gangs are typically comprised of people.
This seems to be where the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument falls flat on its face anyway. I certainly never heard of anyone getting "stabbed in the crossfire".
That said, sure, a gun is more likely to cause collateral damage than a knife, but you'd be surprised how easy it is for someone slashing away with a blade to hit something they didn't intend as well.
xraytango wrote: Criteria: Law abiding citizens follow the law (a bit self-defining there, sorry). Criminals are criminals because they are the antithesis of a law abiding citizen, hence they ignore/flaunt the law.
My take is that bad guys will do bad things no matter how many laws are on the books.
That assumes availability isn't a factor, which is a pretty big thing to leave out.
Now, whether reduced availability to criminals is enough of a positive to offset citizens being denied firearms for lawful use is up for debate, but you can't just assume that because criminals are willing to break the law to get guns then they will be as freely available whether guns are legal or not.
Given that illegal guns are very very easy to come by here I'd say removing legal supplies would do nothing.
Heck, you can make Zip guns with nothing more than some pipe, a nail, and some elastic.
It would take decades for the current supply of guns to dry up, and then we have our very porous border with mexico. The Cartels would start smuggling in weapons in addition to drugs.
Co'tor Shas wrote: NYC has severe gun problems (which is to say guns in the hands of criminals). Legislation that went in, what, 2 years ago probably wouldn't have even put a dent in it, even if it were all guns are illigal.
And especially so when New York has open borders with other states in the union. Unless you have customs officers searching cargo and private travel when it crosses state lines local bans won't do much of anything.
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Dreadclaw69 wrote: Isla Vista Syndrome; if there is an incident where as many people are stabbed as are shot then the stabbings are ignored as if they never happened.
Of the 12,765 murders in the US in 2012, 8,855 or 69% were with firearms. 1,589 or 12% were with knives.
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TheCustomLime wrote: My question is if people who want gun control just want to stop gun violence or violent crime as a whole. Because I doubt strict US gun control will make street gangs just give up and go home.
Of the 12,765 murders in the US, 871 were related to gangs. If the only murders in the US were gang killings, you'd be the most peaceful utopia the world have ever known.
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Grey Templar wrote: Given that illegal guns are very very easy to come by here I'd say removing legal supplies would do nothing.
This was discussed in the other recent gun thread, it was a pretty interesting conversation. It became clear any kind of gun ban would take a while to have real effect on availabilty, but I'm not sure that it automatically follows that a long time delay means you shouldn't do it.
The real argument is that people get a lot of enjoyment out of lawful firearm use, enough to justify the deaths.
Heck, you can make Zip guns with nothing more than some pipe, a nail, and some elastic.
That's pretty silly, to be honest. Effectiveness, compactness, lethality and accuracy are kind of things that matter, you know?
It would take decades for the current supply of guns to dry up, and then we have our very porous border with mexico. The Cartels would start smuggling in weapons in addition to drugs.
xraytango wrote: Criteria: Law abiding citizens follow the law (a bit self-defining there, sorry). Criminals are criminals because they are the antithesis of a law abiding citizen, hence they ignore/flaunt the law.
My take is that bad guys will do bad things no matter how many laws are on the books.
That assumes availability isn't a factor, which is a pretty big thing to leave out.
It also assumes a very black and white view of morality, where "law abiding" citizens never opportunistically break the law, and become criminals, which is pretty silly, and the opposite of what happens all the time. Criminals are not criminals because they are anyone's "antithesis", they are criminals because they broke the law, by definition. Before that, they are law abiding. How many times have we heard some kid, gunned down by police for knocking over a liquor store, described as "a good kid ... on his way to college" etc... I will agree that there are some people who are born or raised, so unhinged, they are almost destined for prison, but they do not necessarily reflect all (or even most) criminals.
Often the reason we make laws, is because laws can be an extention of our values as a society, it does not always have to be about impact. I don't particularly value people who are mentally unstable from operating a gun, regardless of the potential impact. Should we also legalize murder, because "law abiding citizens" don't kill people? That isn't how values work.
I guess the question I'm trying to ask is how many deaths a nation wide firearm ban would prevent and would that decrease justify the rights of citizens being taken away. My problem with gun control people is that they seem to believe that the root cause of violence in the United States is the availability of firearms. While that may be a contributing factor it is short sighted to think that is the biggest factor. I would argue bigger factors to our high homicide rates are poverty and a failing mental health care system.
This isn't to say I'm against all gun control. Far from it. I think the sale of weapons needs to be more controlled. Like that crap about people can get firearms from events without any sort of background check. That needs to be cracked down on. I also think there should be some sort of registry where people with certain violent mental disabilities are barred from owning firearms along with more screening of mental issues. I am just saying that total gun ban would be ineffective in the long run at solving the high homicide rate.
I think talking about a gun ban in the sole context of preventing murders/shootings is a narrow way of looking at it.
People like to complain about police militarization in the US. Well, if we ban guns, gradually remove them from the streets, reduce overall gun crime, is there really a need for every local police department to be armed to the teeth? With bullet proof vests 24/7? Imagine if we also ended the war on drugs. Hell, our police forces could someday go the way of the London police force, walking around with just batons and flash lights. The entire dynamic of law enforcement changes in a society with much fewer guns.Security, public and private, becomes simpler in banks, schools, air ports, and anywhere else that has security concerns. Removing guns from American society would have huge ramifications much larger than just reducing gun related homicides.
Then again... No more firing ranges... The one down the street as Zombie targets!
LordofHats wrote: Hell, our police forces could someday go the way of the London police force, walking around with just batons and flash lights.
They still wear stab vests and have armed units on call. There's a number of tazers out there, but firing one of those is treated exactly the same as discharging a fire arm, so we don't have the trouble of cops zapping people just because they don't like the look of someone.
London is actually the most tooled up area for police. Pop down to Devon, head over to Norfolk or get lost in central Wales and there are areas where a single cop has hundreds of square miles to cover by themselves (I may be exaggerating a bit there).
Or if you really want to know what Brit cops are like, go and watch Hot Fuzz. It's a documentary I believe.
This isn't to say I'm against all gun control. Far from it. I think the sale of weapons needs to be more controlled. Like that crap about people can get firearms from events without any sort of background check. That needs to be cracked down on.
Just to hop in here on this point, here's nothing special about gun shows that allows this, the loophole isn't really what people think it is. Any private party transfer (e.g. Bob selling a gun to his neighbor Jim or Susie selling a gun she no longer wants to her co-worker Jill) can be done without a background check. Doesn't matter if they're making the sale/trade at home, a gunshow, at work, or anywhere else. However, any gun sold by an FFL, which is to say pretty much any vendor at a gun show selling guns (beyond the odd collectible Luger or the like at the obligatory Nazi-stuff booth ), must go through a background check. Likewise, in many states, even private party transfers must get background checks.
Now, setting politics aside, the major non-political issues with forcing private party sales to go through a background check is that people can't access the background check system themselves, they must take the weapon to an FFL and have the FFL run the check, and of course pay the FFL to do so, necessitating extra cost in time, money, transportation, and hassle for the buyer and seller, and lots of minimally profitable "busy work" for the FFL that many have very little desire to do. Basically, it makes it a giant pain in the ass to actually sell a gun for all involved.
I also think there should be some sort of registry where people with certain violent mental disabilities are barred from owning firearms along with more screening of mental issues.
There are several problems with this. First, it will create an incentive for people with mental issues not to seek care. Second, getting *off* such a list if someone is past said mental issues would likely be a truly horrific nightmare if it's even possible at all. Third, getting put *on* such a list has all sorts of abusable and error-prone issues with it. Lastly, most people that have major mental issues and went on to commit shootings hadn't necessarily ever been seen by a mental health professional (as opposed to school administrators or guidance counselors and the like) and as such the right people may never make it onto such a list, as people receiving adequate psychological care aren't typically the ones doing terrible things.
LordofHats wrote: I think talking about a gun ban in the sole context of preventing murders/shootings is a narrow way of looking at it.
People like to complain about police militarization in the US. Well, if we ban guns, gradually remove them from the streets, reduce overall gun crime, is there really a need for every local police department to be armed to the teeth? With bullet proof vests 24/7?
Given that such equipment is frequently, if not usually, used in inappropriate situations in the first place, it's hard to see where they'd give them up. There's a number of other issues at work there. One will notice police departments did not feel such a need to be so heavily armed back when you could mail-order automatic weapons and have them delivered to your door. There's a host of perception, training, professional, cultural, and socio-economic issues that go way beyond guns.
Imagine if we also ended the war on drugs. Hell, our police forces could someday go the way of the London police force, walking around with just batons and flash lights.
To be fair, they're also pretty rare in the world in that regard, and the handful of nations with such police forces typically have much lower levels of violent crime in general, gun or no. Cultural differences also play a part. In Japan for instance, people simply don't fight the police the way they do in the US quite often, regardless of firearms, and you're not going to get people telling police to "get a warrant or get lost" to search a bag or purse the way you will in the US.
LordofHats wrote: Then again... No more firing ranges... The one down the street as Zombie targets!
I don't know that even something as extreme as a "gun ban", would necessarily mean firing ranges have to go. There is a clay pigeon shooting range just near me, I can go there and play with a gun all day long. I just can't walk around the supermarket with it. Even in the UK, there are lots of people who own and use guns for recreation or as part of their work. The only thing we don't allow is people owning a gun for the purpose of "in case they decide that they need to shoot someone". We don't want people have fights and shoot outs, with injuries and collateral damage. A citizen's duty is to avoid those situations and retreat from them whenever possible, not be armed and ready to blow someone away.
I guess that does allow for the situation where someone is trapped and unable to defend themselves, but that kind of no-win situation can also happen to gun owners in the US. I was reading recently about a guy who was shot right outside his gun range, and had all his guns stolen. or you could just be walking down the street and get shot in the head...
This isn't to say I'm against all gun control. Far from it. I think the sale of weapons needs to be more controlled. Like that crap about people can get firearms from events without any sort of background check. That needs to be cracked down on.
Just to hop in here on this point, here's nothing special about gun shows that allows this, the loophole isn't really what people think it is. Any private party transfer (e.g. Bob selling a gun to his neighbor Jim or Susie selling a gun she no longer wants to her co-worker Jill) can be done without a background check. Doesn't matter if they're making the sale/trade at home, a gunshow, at work, or anywhere else.
That wouldn't happen with a car though (or maybe it would in the US I dunno), but here if I sell a car there is paperwork involved. I'm supposed to inform the DVLA that I sold the car, and record the date, the price, make and model, the registration number, and the names and addresses of the buyer and seller. It's not as easy as just selling your old warhammer stuff.
TheCustomLime wrote: I guess the question I'm trying to ask is how many deaths a nation wide firearm ban would prevent and would that decrease justify the rights of citizens being taken away. My problem with gun control people is that they seem to believe that the root cause of violence in the United States is the availability of firearms. While that may be a contributing factor it is short sighted to think that is the biggest factor. I would argue bigger factors to our high homicide rates are poverty and a failing mental health care system.
This isn't to say I'm against all gun control. Far from it. I think the sale of weapons needs to be more controlled. Like that crap about people can get firearms from events without any sort of background check. That needs to be cracked down on. I also think there should be some sort of registry where people with certain violent mental disabilities are barred from owning firearms along with more screening of mental issues. I am just saying that total gun ban would be ineffective in the long run at solving the high homicide rate.
1. Deaths by firearms have been declining for decades
2. The Gunshow Loophole you obliquely refer to is a myth. The only time background checks are not mandated is a private sale between individuals. Any FFL dealer must perform a background check
3. That "registry" is the NICS background check run by the FBI, and they are disbarred from owning firearms. HIPPA may cause conflicts with this though so looking at a way to strengthen this portion of the background check is a worthwhile venture
Smacks wrote: I don't know that even something as extreme as a "gun ban", would necessarily mean firing ranges have to go. There is a clay pigeon shooting range just near me, I can go there and play with a gun all day long. I just can't walk around the supermarket with it. Even in the UK, there are lots of people who own and use guns for recreation or as part of their work. The only thing we don't allow is people owning a gun for the purpose of "in case they decide that they need to shoot someone". We don't want people have fights and shoot outs, with injuries and collateral damage. A citizen's duty is to avoid those situations and retreat from them whenever possible, not be armed and ready to blow someone away.
I guess that does allow for the situation where someone is trapped and unable to defend themselves, but that kind of no-win situation can also happen to gun owners in the US. I was reading recently about a guy who was shot right outside his gun range, and had all his guns stolen. or you could just be walking down the street and get shot in the head...
No one here want's collateral damage either. Bystanders being wounded by people defending themselves is very, very rare (unless the NYPD is involved). Reading your post I think you are confused about how self-defense in the US works. There is a legitimate difference between able to defend yourself against a threat (or multiple threats) and being "ready to blow someone away". Most gun owners will tell you that the best fight they ever had was the one that they avoided.Unfortunately not all can be avoided.
And the UK's gun prohibition is now leading to even heavier restrictions whereby police firearms licensing employees want to ban: .22 semi-autos; magazine-fed shotguns; all 50-cals; section 2 certificates; free 1-for-1 variations; old spec deactivated firearms; antique firearms; and appeals to courts against police decisions. They also want power to enter without a warrant, and the ability to revoke a certificate for 6 months with a possibility of perpetual extensions via an internal (i.e. non-judicial not before the court) process.
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Smacks wrote: That wouldn't happen with a car though (or maybe it would in the US I dunno), but here if I sell a car there is paperwork involved. I'm supposed to inform the DVLA that I sold the car, and record the date, the price, make and model, the registration number, and the names and addresses of the buyer and seller. It's not as easy as just selling your old warhammer stuff.
In the US it pretty much is as easy as selling your old Warhammer stuff.
Dreadclaw69 wrote: No one here want's collateral damage either. Bystanders being wounded by people defending themselves is very, very rare (unless the NYPD is involved).
heh.
Reading your post I think you are confused about how self-defense in the US works. There is a legitimate difference between able to defend yourself against a threat (or multiple threats) and being "ready to blow someone away". Most gun owners will tell you that the best fight they ever had was the one that they avoided.Unfortunately not all can be avoided.
I think the only legitimate difference is one of persuasive language. It's like the difference between the ministry of defence and the ministry of war... It's exactly the same ministry. If you go into a shop and buy a gun for "home defense", the implication is that you are preparing and willing to shoot someone, who you have determined is a threat. You are making yourself ready to meet that threat with deadly force. That doesn't sound like the behaviour of someone who is earnestly planning to avoid and retreat.
To clarify, I personally don't support a gun ban. I do however think that the politics of guns in the US are horribly narrow minded on both sides, and focused heavily on, dare I say, outright brain dead arguments about overthrowing the government and "the founding father's would roll in their graves!"
Gun control shouldn't just be a discussion about how many people are killed using guns, or about some silly notion of tradition or abstract necessity, but about the effects that having so many guns and such easy access to them has on society at large, how those guns interact with other social issues like drugs, law enforcement, and economics, and what would happen were serious steps taken to curtail that. it's an important discussion and its one that isn't happening.
LordofHats wrote: To clarify, I personally don't support a gun ban. I do however think that the politics of guns in the US are horribly narrow minded on both sides, and focused heavily on, dare I say, outright brain dead arguments about overthrowing the government and "the founding father's would roll in their graves!"
Gun control shouldn't just be a discussion about how many people are killed using guns, or about some silly notion of tradition or abstract necessity, but about the effects that having so many guns and such easy access to them has on society at large, how those guns interact with other social issues like drugs, law enforcement, and economics, and what would happen were serious steps taken to curtail that. it's an important discussion and its one that isn't happening.
Get out of here! We don't want your sensible posts in an OT gun topic!
Dreadclaw69 wrote:And the UK's gun prohibition is now leading to even heavier restrictions whereby police firearms licensing employees want to ban: .22 semi-autos; magazine-fed shotguns; all 50-cals; section 2 certificates; free 1-for-1 variations; old spec deactivated firearms; antique firearms; and appeals to courts against police decisions. They also want power to enter without a warrant, and the ability to revoke a certificate for 6 months with a possibility of perpetual extensions via an internal (i.e. non-judicial not before the court) process.
The UK doesn't have a gun prohibition, we just have strict laws about possession of firearms. I'm also not quite sure what you mean by the bolded part, could you expand on that?
Dreadclaw69 wrote:And the UK's gun prohibition is now leading to even heavier restrictions whereby police firearms licensing employees want to ban: .22 semi-autos; magazine-fed shotguns; all 50-cals; section 2 certificates; free 1-for-1 variations; old spec deactivated firearms; antique firearms; and appeals to courts against police decisions. They also want power to enter without a warrant, and the ability to revoke a certificate for 6 months with a possibility of perpetual extensions via an internal (i.e. non-judicial not before the court) process.
The UK doesn't have a gun prohibition, we just have strict laws about possession of firearms. I'm also not quite sure what you mean by the bolded part, could you expand on that?
I personally would like to see some citations for Dreadclaw's claims.
LordofHats wrote: To clarify, I personally don't support a gun ban. I do however think that the politics of guns in the US are horribly narrow minded on both sides, and focused heavily on, dare I say, outright brain dead arguments about overthrowing the government and "the founding father's would roll in their graves!"
Gun control shouldn't just be a discussion about how many people are killed using guns, or about some silly notion of tradition or abstract necessity, but about the effects that having so many guns and such easy access to them has on society at large, how those guns interact with other social issues like drugs, law enforcement, and economics, and what would happen were serious steps taken to curtail that. it's an important discussion and its one that isn't happening.
Legally purchasing guns is tightly controlled and regulated. Sure it's "easy" for criminals to illegally purchase guns the same way it's "easier" for criminals to illegally purchase drugs rather than obtain them from a pharmacy with a proper prescriptions and ID but it's always been "easier" to obtain something illegally.
We already have strict federal and state regulations requiring background checks, permits, licensing, tax stamps etc. We still can't, and won't ever, be able to control people or accurately predict their future actions and intentions. A person with a clean record can pass a background check and purchase a firearm but that doesn't mean that person won't ever commit a crime with that firearm in the future. However, since our founding principle for our legal system is "innocent until proven guilty" it's wrong to prejudge people and prohibit free law abiding citizens from owning a firearm when they've done nothing to disqualify themselves from using their individual right to make that choice for themselves. We've never been able to guarantee that people won't misuse the guns, knives, cars, etc. that they own and hurt others with them but we can only legally and morally justify punishing people after they've done something wrong not pre-emptively just in case they might do something wrong.
Nobody is pro murder or pro crime but we've established over the past several centuries a society that is founded on individual liberty, free will and the rule of law. We can only rely on the fact that the vast majority of people are decent and that our judicial system will punish those who are caught breaking the law to discourage wrongdoing and protect the populace. Pre-emptively punishing the law abiding majority in a doomed to fail attempt to prevent the small minority of lawbreakers from doing bad things is pointless.
You're right that guns are just a part of larger complex issues. Take drugs for example. Why do we have an illegal drug trade? Because people want to use/abuse drugs. Since there is a demand for drugs somebody will find a way to supply that demand, take their money and make a profit. Since the drugs in question are either illegal themselves or being obtained illegally the demand is serviced by criminal organizations. Now you have criminals making money in a lucrative multinational multibillion dollar trade so you have intense competition. Since you have competition between rival gangs/cartels/syndicates you have violence. Since you have violence you have a desire/need for firearms and then you have shootings. Bad guys shooting bad guys, bad guys shooting good guys, good guys trying to take down bad guys, innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire far too often. Now it's a highly visible problem and politicians need a scapegoat to satisfy the people.
Guns aren't the problem in that scenario. Guns are supply issue and the problem is a demand issue. There's a demand for violence because there's criminal drug trafficking because there's a demand for drugs. Gangs used to gun people down in the street in the 1930s during prohibition because bootlegging creating intense competition because criminals were making mountains of cash off of selling illegal booze. The end of prohibition took away the demand for tommy guns to gun people down over smuggled whiskey.
If you want to address the root causes of violent crime that would be great. It would help make the world a better place. Making it harder for law abiding citizens like me to buy firearms isn't going to have any discernible effect on the willingness of criminals to commit violent crimes with guns.
Dreadclaw69 wrote: No one here want's collateral damage either. Bystanders being wounded by people defending themselves is very, very rare (unless the NYPD is involved).
heh.
Reading your post I think you are confused about how self-defense in the US works. There is a legitimate difference between able to defend yourself against a threat (or multiple threats) and being "ready to blow someone away". Most gun owners will tell you that the best fight they ever had was the one that they avoided.Unfortunately not all can be avoided.
I think the only legitimate difference is one of persuasive language. It's like the difference between the ministry of defence and the ministry of war... It's exactly the same ministry. If you go into a shop and buy a gun for "home defense", the implication is that you are preparing and willing to shoot someone, who you have determined is a threat. You are making yourself ready to meet that threat with deadly force. That doesn't sound like the behaviour of someone who is earnestly planning to avoid and retreat.
Most states in the US no longer have laws that impose a duty to retreat. If somebody breaks into my house and poses a reasonable threat of imminent bodily harm I don't have to run away, I can stand my ground and defend myself, with lethal force if necessary. I'm the one in the right, it's my house, I'm being victimized by the criminal breaking in. If the criminal doesn't want to risk getting shot then the criminal and choose not to break into people's houses.
The language is very clear for self defense. A reasonable imminent thread of bodily harm or death. Reasonable will be defined by a your local prosecutor's office or ultimately a jury of your peers during trial. Self defense is an inalienable human right. Nobody has the right to harm others and everyone has the right to protect himself/herself from harm.
If a law abiding citizen wants to own a gun for self defense that's a personal choice they are free to make. If they can pass the federally required background check they haven't done anything that would disqualify them from exercising their right to own firearms and can choose to purchase what they want. Since gun ownership is a constitutional right, it doesn't need a qualification, you don't have to feel a need for self defense, or a desire to participate in shooting sports, or to go hunting or to shoot as a hobby or whatever. You don't need a justification to exercise free speech, free assembly, freedom of religion or any other right either, that's the whole point of liberty, being able to exercise your free will.
Prestor Jon wrote: Since gun ownership is a constitutional right, it doesn't need a qualification, you don't have to feel a need for self defense, or a desire to participate in shooting sports, or to go hunting or to shoot as a hobby or whatever. You don't need a justification to exercise free speech, free assembly, freedom of religion or any other right either, that's the whole point of liberty, being able to exercise your free will.
Well lets not forget that Carey Gabay was exercising his right to free assembly when he got shot in head. Which no doubt inhibited him in what he was doing. While you can draw parallels between gun rights and other rights, each right comes with its own unique benefits and dangers, and limitations. Which aught to be considered on their own merits, not because you can draw parallels with other rights. I have the right to a fair trial, but I don't get to pick the date, and have no record of it happening. You've got to work within the system.
TheCustomLime wrote: I guess the question I'm trying to ask is how many deaths a nation wide firearm ban would prevent and would that decrease justify the rights of citizens being taken away.
"A lot more than are occurring currently" is probably the best answer you're going to get.
Prestor Jon wrote: Most states in the US no longer have laws that impose a duty to retreat. If somebody breaks into my house and poses a reasonable threat of imminent bodily harm I don't have to run away, I can stand my ground and defend myself, with lethal force if necessary. I'm the one in the right, it's my house, I'm being victimized by the criminal breaking in. If the criminal doesn't want to risk getting shot then the criminal and choose not to break into people's houses.
While this is totally accurate, I do want to clarify that there are still a lot of states that require you to escape first in that situation - the "duty to retreat" he mentions - 20 states. So while "most" is true, "a little over half" might be more specific. It's not a safe assumption that the above is true in the state you live in. If you own a firearm in the US you need to be aware of that is required of you in your state beforehand.
Of course, you also should probably pick up a first aid kit, a few smoke alarms, and a fire extinguisher, because statistically those are all way, way more likely to be needed than your gun, but that's a whole other thread.
So far as the issue discussed, it's not one that gun control could have fixed or that gun availability could have fixed, either. If it truly was a select fire MAC-10, as was reported in a few places - probably erroneously - than already many, many laws had already been broken. Conversely, private gun ownership won't protect you from suddenly getting hit in the head from a stray bullet.
Prestor Jon wrote: Since gun ownership is a constitutional right, it doesn't need a qualification, you don't have to feel a need for self defense, or a desire to participate in shooting sports, or to go hunting or to shoot as a hobby or whatever. You don't need a justification to exercise free speech, free assembly, freedom of religion or any other right either, that's the whole point of liberty, being able to exercise your free will.
Well lets not forget that Carey Gabay was exercising his right to free assembly when he got shot in head. Which no doubt inhibited him in what he was doing. While you can draw parallels between gun rights and other rights, each right comes with its own unique benefits and dangers, and limitations. Which aught to be considered on their own merits, not because you can draw parallels with other rights. I have the right to a fair trial, but I don't get to pick the date, and have no record of it happening. You've got to work within the system.
A criminal, in possession of an illegal firearm, if reports of it being a select fire MAC10 are true, chose to commit a crime with it. No laws or inhibitions on rights could stop the criminal from firing the gun. Our criminal justice system can prosecute the criminal for the crime committed once he's caught but punishing law abiding citizens with more onerous restrictions on their constitutional rights would have no bearing on criminals choosing to commit crimes.
Comparisons to parallel rights is important because once you set a legal precedent for restricting any part of the Bill of Rights you can use the same argument to restrict other rights. Constituionally guaranteed rights all have the same legal standing so eroding one permits the eroding of others and if one is inalienable then all are inalienable.
If an aide of the governor got killed by a drunk driver should we then enact stricter control of the sale of alcohol or car ownership or the issuance of drivers licenses? You can't pre-emptively stop people from making bad and harmful choices you can only punish them after the fact and the only people that should be punished for the crime are the ones who commit them.
TheCustomLime wrote: I guess the question I'm trying to ask is how many deaths a nation wide firearm ban would prevent and would that decrease justify the rights of citizens being taken away.
"A lot more than are occurring currently" is probably the best answer you're going to get.
Collective punishment is morally and legally wrong. If somebody commits a crime then society should punish the perpetrator(s) not vast swathes of the population that had nothing to do with it. If somebody else does something wrong that doesn't give the government the right to infringe on the rights of people who had no involvement in the wrongdoing. If the government is going to try to restrict or remove constitutionally guaranteed rights from hundreds of millions of people they need a much stronger reason then the mere possibility that a tiny subset of those hundreds of millions of citizens might in the future abuse that right in the commission of a crime and harm others. How can you justify the government punishing people for something they didn't do, had no control over, had no responsibility for or involvement in?
Prestor Jon wrote: Most states in the US no longer have laws that impose a duty to retreat. If somebody breaks into my house and poses a reasonable threat of imminent bodily harm I don't have to run away, I can stand my ground and defend myself, with lethal force if necessary. I'm the one in the right, it's my house, I'm being victimized by the criminal breaking in. If the criminal doesn't want to risk getting shot then the criminal and choose not to break into people's houses.
While this is totally accurate, I do want to clarify that there are still a lot of states that require you to escape first in that situation - the "duty to retreat" he mentions - 20 states. So while "most" is true, "a little over half" might be more specific. It's not a safe assumption that the above is true in the state you live in. If you own a firearm in the US you need to be aware of that is required of you in your state beforehand.
Of course, you also should probably pick up a first aid kit, a few smoke alarms, and a fire extinguisher, because statistically those are all way, way more likely to be needed than your gun, but that's a whole other thread.
So far as the issue discussed, it's not one that gun control could have fixed or that gun availability could have fixed, either. If it truly was a select fire MAC-10, as was reported in a few places - probably erroneously - than already many, many laws had already been broken. Conversely, private gun ownership won't protect you from suddenly getting hit in the head from a stray bullet.
Correct. I wasn't trying to mislead but didn't have the time at the moment to get precise figures and went with "most" since it's accurate even though it's imprecise. I agree completely with your bolded statements. Too often the issue of gun control is brought up as a simple solution to a complex problem that really isn't caused by legal ownership of firearms.
This isn't to say I'm against all gun control. Far from it. I think the sale of weapons needs to be more controlled. Like that crap about people can get firearms from events without any sort of background check. That needs to be cracked down on.
Just to hop in here on this point, here's nothing special about gun shows that allows this, the loophole isn't really what people think it is. Any private party transfer (e.g. Bob selling a gun to his neighbor Jim or Susie selling a gun she no longer wants to her co-worker Jill) can be done without a background check. Doesn't matter if they're making the sale/trade at home, a gunshow, at work, or anywhere else.
That wouldn't happen with a car though (or maybe it would in the US I dunno), but here if I sell a car there is paperwork involved. I'm supposed to inform the DVLA that I sold the car, and record the date, the price, make and model, the registration number, and the names and addresses of the buyer and seller. It's not as easy as just selling your old warhammer stuff.
Cars have a number of other factors associated with them even without getting into issues of "rights" and whatnot. They typically are big, expensive pieces of complex equipment that have very large environmental impacts and typically compose a substantial portion of an individual's assets (typically being the #1 most expensive asset aside from a house/condo) and as such have titles much like most land/buildings have a deed. Most are also intended to be used on government roadways. A firearm, as an object of property, typically has nowhere near the economic gravity or public use issues a vehicle does.
That said, not all motor vehicles have these things. Cars that are not intended to be used on public roads have much less paperwork attached to them, and something like a tractor will, in most places, literally have zero paperwork or sale requirements.
Prestor Jon wrote: Collective punishment is morally and legally wrong. If somebody commits a crime then society should punish the perpetrator(s) not vast swathes of the population that had nothing to do with it. If somebody else does something wrong that doesn't give the government the right to infringe on the rights of people who had no involvement in the wrongdoing. If the government is going to try to restrict or remove constitutionally guaranteed rights from hundreds of millions of people they need a much stronger reason then the mere possibility that a tiny subset of those hundreds of millions of citizens might in the future abuse that right in the commission of a crime and harm others. How can you justify the government punishing people for something they didn't do, had no control over, had no responsibility for or involvement in?
Well, except that no right is totally absolute. There isn't really popular support to remove the restrictions on fully automatic weapons, or heavy weaponry like mortars or missile launchers (for example), just as there isn't really support for removing the restriction of your ability to yell fire in a crowded theater (for example). We clearly accept that not all of our rights are totally absolute.If we decide to restrict firearms more than they already are as a nation via our elected representatives - I think calling that "collective punishment" is a bit of a mischaracterization. It's simply the latest nudge in what has been a moving line for the entire existence of the country - sometimes one way, sometimes the other.
And I hope I didn't imply that you were being misleading in that last post because I certainly didn't intend to, I just wanted to expand on it because I'm pretty sure this is something most people aren't generally aware of. Look at the outcry over "Stand your ground" with the claims it would turn the nation into a shooting gallery.I think even most Americans aren't clear that in a lot of places, if you own a gun and someone breaks into your house, if you shoot before trying to run away you can be prosecuted.
Prestor Jon wrote: Collective punishment is morally and legally wrong. If somebody commits a crime then society should punish the perpetrator(s) not vast swathes of the population that had nothing to do with it. If somebody else does something wrong that doesn't give the government the right to infringe on the rights of people who had no involvement in the wrongdoing. If the government is going to try to restrict or remove constitutionally guaranteed rights from hundreds of millions of people they need a much stronger reason then the mere possibility that a tiny subset of those hundreds of millions of citizens might in the future abuse that right in the commission of a crime and harm others. How can you justify the government punishing people for something they didn't do, had no control over, had no responsibility for or involvement in?
Well, except that no right is totally absolute. There isn't really popular support to remove the restrictions on fully automatic weapons, or heavy weaponry like mortars or missile launchers (for example), just as there isn't really support for removing the restriction of your ability to yell fire in a crowded theater (for example). We clearly accept that not all of our rights are totally absolute.If we decide to restrict firearms more than they already are as a nation via our elected representatives - I think calling that "collective punishment" is a bit of a mischaracterization. It's simply the latest nudge in what has been a moving line for the entire existence of the country - sometimes one way, sometimes the other.
And I hope I didn't imply that you were being misleading in that last post because I certainly didn't intend to, I just wanted to expand on it because I'm pretty sure this is something most people aren't generally aware of. Look at the outcry over "Stand your ground" with the claims it would turn the nation into a shooting gallery.I think even most Americans aren't clear that in a lot of places, if you own a gun and someone breaks into your house, if you shoot before trying to run away you can be prosecuted.
Some rights are absolute. I agree that the 2nd amendment isn't an absolute right but there's a difference between reasonable restrictions on firearms ownership and banning citizens from owning firearms. TheCustomLime asked "how many deaths a nation wide fierarm band would prevent and would that decrease justify the rights of citizens being taken away?" The banning of private firearm ownership altogether is what I was referring to as collective punishment. Stripping a right away entirely purely on the basis that a tiny minority of citizens will probably abuse it isn't justifiable. Telling a citizen that he/she can no longer legally own a gun because they committed a crime with a gun is justifiable, telling a citizen he/she cannot legally own a gun because he/she might misuse it at some point in the future is not. In the instance of a ban the govt is inflicting real harm, the removal of a constitutional right, purely on the basis of a hypothetical situation that statistically speaking won't occur in the vast majority of the instances of the right being exercised.
I didn't think you were accusing me of being misleading I just wanted to clarify that I'm just trying to speed post on my lunch break to break up the monotony of the workday and didn't take the time to find more specific information. I appreciate your help in posting the fact and I didn't want to come across as somebody who's being intentionally vague.
Prestor Jon wrote: Collective punishment is morally and legally wrong. If somebody commits a crime then society should punish the perpetrator(s) not vast swathes of the population that had nothing to do with it. If somebody else does something wrong that doesn't give the government the right to infringe on the rights of people who had no involvement in the wrongdoing. If the government is going to try to restrict or remove constitutionally guaranteed rights from hundreds of millions of people they need a much stronger reason then the mere possibility that a tiny subset of those hundreds of millions of citizens might in the future abuse that right in the commission of a crime and harm others. How can you justify the government punishing people for something they didn't do, had no control over, had no responsibility for or involvement in?
Well, except that no right is totally absolute. There isn't really popular support to remove the restrictions on fully automatic weapons, or heavy weaponry like mortars or missile launchers (for example), just as there isn't really support for removing the restriction of your ability to yell fire in a crowded theater (for example). We clearly accept that not all of our rights are totally absolute.If we decide to restrict firearms more than they already are as a nation via our elected representatives - I think calling that "collective punishment" is a bit of a mischaracterization. It's simply the latest nudge in what has been a moving line for the entire existence of the country - sometimes one way, sometimes the other.
And I hope I didn't imply that you were being misleading in that last post because I certainly didn't intend to, I just wanted to expand on it because I'm pretty sure this is something most people aren't generally aware of. Look at the outcry over "Stand your ground" with the claims it would turn the nation into a shooting gallery.I think even most Americans aren't clear that in a lot of places, if you own a gun and someone breaks into your house, if you shoot before trying to run away you can be prosecuted.
Some rights are absolute. I agree that the 2nd amendment isn't an absolute right but there's a difference between reasonable restrictions on firearms ownership and banning citizens from owning firearms. TheCustomLime asked "how many deaths a nation wide fierarm band would prevent and would that decrease justify the rights of citizens being taken away?" The banning of private firearm ownership altogether is what I was referring to as collective punishment. Stripping a right away entirely purely on the basis that a tiny minority of citizens will probably abuse it isn't justifiable. Telling a citizen that he/she can no longer legally own a gun because they committed a crime with a gun is justifiable, telling a citizen he/she cannot legally own a gun because he/she might misuse it at some point in the future is not. In the instance of a ban the govt is inflicting real harm, the removal of a constitutional right, purely on the basis of a hypothetical situation that statistically speaking won't occur in the vast majority of the instances of the right being exercised.
I didn't think you were accusing me of being misleading I just wanted to clarify that I'm just trying to speed post on my lunch break to break up the monotony of the workday and didn't take the time to find more specific information. I appreciate your help in posting the fact and I didn't want to come across as somebody who's being intentionally vague.
But you've banned ownership of certain weapons already (the one in the article), based on the fact that the probability of misuse is too high compared to the amount of legitimate use such weapons would see. Specifically referring to the bolded part, what is the statistical threshold for banning access to a certain weapon, because of high the probability of illegitimate use?
I would claim that those bans are indeed pointless since the rate of crime committed with them is indeed so incredibly low.
If no weapons were illegal, criminals would still use the same weapons they use currently. Even if we could buy full-auto assault rifles as easily as we can buy shotguns and pistols the weapon of choice for crimes would still be pistols. Simply because they are concealable and significantly cheaper. Most guns used in commission of homicides get dumped immediately afterwards. Dumping a $50 pistol is way easier than dumping a $5000 AK. And nobody is going to use a $10,000+ full auto version. Really the only people with full auto weapons would be law abiding citizens who want a cool toy.
You make full auto weapons 100% legal, no additional licensing. You would not see a jump in gun related crime. You might see one crime with a full auto weapon committed every 5-10 years. Just spitballing here.
At least somewhat related. Illegal guns here in Finland are usually either stolen legal guns or old military hardware - you'd be surprised how many WW2 guns are still lying around in forgotten caches or as souvenirs in the home of some veteran's family. The rest is pretty rare, things like smuggled Russian weapons or a stolen modern military gun. As in the US criminals do favor handguns for easy conceilability, ofc.
It would be interesting to know if there's any info on how many illegal guns in the USA are actually smuggled in as opposed to being stolen or otherwise obtained domestically through fraud etc. I do remember seeing some list of popular guns for crimes with some talk about "time-to-crime" for some, ie the time it will take on average before a legally bought gun of that make is used in a crime. And as mentioned private sales don't require a background check - what's to prevent a criminal from having someone lacking a criminal record buy him a gun?
Spetulhu wrote: what's to prevent a criminal from having someone lacking a criminal record buy him a gun?
This is called a Straw Purchase, and it is VERY VERY VERY illegal.
Now there isn't really anything to prevent someone from having a friend with no criminal record buy them a gun. But you'll get in a lot of trouble if caught, and by definition become a criminal yourself if you do this.
Fully automatic firearms are actually legal, and the main obstacle to getting one is merely the cost of the firearm, a few hundred dollars in tax stamps and fees, and 6 months to a year of waiting for paperwork to process. I've seen statistics that estimate there are hundreds of thousands of legally owned fully automatic weapons in private hands. Of those, in the past hundred years there has been I believe a grand total of oneviolent crime committed with a legally owned automatic firearm, at least as of a few years ago.
When the original purpose was so the Government wouldn't be allowed to confiscate firearms, it seems giving them a list of names is counter productive and against the entire point of the amendment.
Grey Templar wrote: When the original purpose was so the Government wouldn't be allowed to confiscate firearms, it seems giving them a list of names is counter productive and against the entire point of the amendment.
Yeah, because times haven't changed since then have they?
Grey Templar wrote: When the original purpose was so the Government wouldn't be allowed to confiscate firearms, it seems giving them a list of names is counter productive and against the entire point of the amendment.
Yeah, because times haven't changed since then have they?
-Shrike- wrote: You can't speak or believe someone to death.
Well, one can very much use speech to cause or incite the death of others, and the 1st amendment doesn't cover that, just as you can't use the 2nd as a defense against a murder charge with a weapon.
Grey Templar wrote: Yeah, but IMO we shouldn't have to go through all that crap. The government shouldn't know what I own.
Its just not enough people care to raise a stink about it.
To be fair there is no national firearm registry and only a few states have something like a statewide registry. Outside of Class 3 items the govt doesn't know what the vast majority of gun owners own. There are records of who's been issued concealed carry permits and there are 4473 forms from purchases but there's no database of them. I agree that there really isn't enough of a substantial difference between class 3 items and everything we're allowed to own without a tax stamp to warrant the federal involvement but intruding into our lives is what the leviathan does.
-Shrike- wrote: You can't speak or believe someone to death.
Irrelevant. All Constitutional Rights are equally important and the same standards should apply.
Exactly. The perceived danger of the misuse of a right doesn't make that right less important. Ideas and ideology can be incredibly dangerous but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a right to free speech and the freedom to practice the religion of our choice. Individual liberty and free will are inherently dangerous, they're also incredibly valuable, important inalienable parts of our humanity.
Grey Templar wrote: At most, it should be a Class 3 license that lets you own things from a list, but nothing is kept as to what you actually own or where you keep it.
I could have 1 M2, I could have 10,000 M2s. They should never know.
The whole tax stamp and NFA Act is a farcical arbitrary govt intrusion. A minor difference in barrel length and/or the addition of a suppressor really doesn't alter the performance of rifle to the point that it become a completely different and more dangerous weapon. Suppressor are great, they help protect people's hearing and minimize the disturbance to neighbors and other people and citizens used to be able to order them through the mail for a few dollars with no discernible detriment to public safety.
Yeah, I've never understood the restrictions on suppressors, they certainly don't make guns silent, they just make it so the sound doesn't carry for miles and someone fifty feet away won't need hearing protection.
Vaktathi wrote: Yeah, I've never understood the restrictions on suppressors, they certainly don't make guns silent, they just make it so the sound doesn't carry for miles and someone fifty feet away won't need hearing protection.
Yeah, I've never understood the disconnect between the biggest complaint against ranges and shooting being the noise yet we deliberately make suppressor extra difficult to obtain.
Vaktathi wrote: Yeah, I've never understood the restrictions on suppressors, they certainly don't make guns silent, they just make it so the sound doesn't carry for miles and someone fifty feet away won't need hearing protection.
Yeah, I've never understood the disconnect between the biggest complaint against ranges and shooting being the noise yet we deliberately make suppressor extra difficult to obtain.
You mean you don't know? Suppressors turn a loud bang into a soft pfft-like sound such as when a small kitten is tossed onto a fluffy pillow. Everyone knows that - just watch any television show.
Spetulhu wrote: what's to prevent a criminal from having someone lacking a criminal record buy him a gun?
This is called a Straw Purchase, and it is VERY VERY VERY illegal.
Now there isn't really anything to prevent someone from having a friend with no criminal record buy them a gun. But you'll get in a lot of trouble if caught, and by definition become a criminal yourself if you do this.
Yup, to clarify when a person with a clean background intentionally buys firearms for prohibited persons... that's what is illegal.
You can, however, purchase a gun for your wife or kids (just as long as they're not prohibited by background check).
Smacks wrote: I think the only legitimate difference is one of persuasive language. It's like the difference between the ministry of defence and the ministry of war... It's exactly the same ministry. If you go into a shop and buy a gun for "home defense", the implication is that you are preparing and willing to shoot someone, who you have determined is a threat. You are making yourself ready to meet that threat with deadly force. That doesn't sound like the behaviour of someone who is earnestly planning to avoid and retreat.
Duty to retreat as you put it does not exist in the same form as you understand it in every jurisdiction. As an aside if I am within my own home why should I be expected to retreat? The "ready to blow someone away" just read like hyperbole, and perhaps I misread your intentions as most people who oppose private gun ownership, and the use of guns for self-defense, often attempt to paint their opponents as itching for a chance to shoot someone.
LordofHats wrote: Gun control shouldn't just be a discussion about how many people are killed using guns, or about some silly notion of tradition or abstract necessity, but about the effects that having so many guns and such easy access to them has on society at large, how those guns interact with other social issues like drugs, law enforcement, and economics, and what would happen were serious steps taken to curtail that. it's an important discussion and its one that isn't happening.
End the War on Drugs, focus on mental health issues, improve the social situations in deprived areas and I would dare say that a lot of crime would decrease
Henry wrote: I personally would like to see some citations for Dreadclaw's claims.
Smacks wrote: Well lets not forget that Carey Gabay was exercising his right to free assembly when he got shot in head. Which no doubt inhibited him in what he was doing. While you can draw parallels between gun rights and other rights, each right comes with its own unique benefits and dangers, and limitations. Which aught to be considered on their own merits, not because you can draw parallels with other rights. I have the right to a fair trial, but I don't get to pick the date, and have no record of it happening. You've got to work within the system.
Are you trying to compare the lawful exercising of the right to peaceably assemble with a criminal gang gun battle? We already have a system for gun ownership. It's the Second Amendment, and there are many restrictions on it already.
Spetulhu wrote: And as mentioned private sales don't require a background check - what's to prevent a criminal from having someone lacking a criminal record buy him a gun?
Federal law. If you make a purchase for another who you know, or have reason to know, is not a qualified person then you should be prepared to go to Federal prison for a significant period
Soladrin wrote: The government doesn't need to know what you own. Unless it's a gun.
Vaktathi wrote: Yeah, I've never understood the restrictions on suppressors, they certainly don't make guns silent, they just make it so the sound doesn't carry for miles and someone fifty feet away won't need hearing protection.
Yeah, I've never understood the disconnect between the biggest complaint against ranges and shooting being the noise yet we deliberately make suppressor extra difficult to obtain.
Because the complaint is against the existence of the range. The noise is a convenient wrapping to dress it up in
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Spetulhu wrote: It would be interesting to know if there's any info on how many illegal guns in the USA are actually smuggled in as opposed to being stolen or otherwise obtained domestically through fraud etc. I do remember seeing some list of popular guns for crimes with some talk about "time-to-crime" for some, ie the time it will take on average before a legally bought gun of that make is used in a crime.
This was a small study done with inmates in Cook County Illinois (the county where Chicago is located)
2. The Gunshow Loophole you obliquely refer to is a myth. The only time background checks are not mandated is a private sale between individuals. Any FFL dealer must perform a background check
This is only true insofar as a given gun show does not allow private collectors to have a table of guns "for sale". Which, I believe that has been a trend that, in order to protect themselves from litigation, many Show organizers are tightening down on private sellers, or not allowing them in the first place.
Duty to retreat as you put it does not exist in the same form as you understand it in every jurisdiction. As an aside if I am within my own home why should I be expected to retreat? The "ready to blow someone away" just read like hyperbole, and perhaps I misread your intentions as most people who oppose private gun ownership, and the use of guns for self-defense, often attempt to paint their opponents as itching for a chance to shoot someone.
I actually really, really like my current state's "castle doctrine". I've talked to a number of folks in the know, and basically if a person here has a legal right to be where they are, they have the legal right to defend where they are. One of the best "cases" where judges upheld this view, a man was in Pioneer square in Seattle, a homeless/deranged man came sprinting across the square screaming "I'm going to kill you!! Im going to fething kill you!!" and tackled the first man, who happened to be legally carrying his pistol. In the ensuing ground scuffle, the first man was able to free an arm and shoot, and kill the deranged/homeless man. There did happen to be a Seattle PD officer just around the corner, who heard the guy screaming his "imma kill you!" thing, but by the time he got close enough, the shot had been fired.
Basically, the state upheld it's "don't back down" or "castle doctrine" or whatever name you want to give it, citing that the person who was concealed carrying, had a legal right to be in Pioneer Square and therefore was not obligated to retreat, leave, deescalate or anything.
2. The Gunshow Loophole you obliquely refer to is a myth. The only time background checks are not mandated is a private sale between individuals. Any FFL dealer must perform a background check
This is only true insofar as a given gun show does not allow private collectors to have a table of guns "for sale". Which, I believe that has been a trend that, in order to protect themselves from litigation, many Show organizers are tightening down on private sellers, or not allowing them in the first place.
Whether or not gun shows rent tables to private individuals doesn't change the fact that anyone with an FFL has to run a background check and record every sale. I have to record every purchase I make with my C&R FFL whether I buy from a store or individual. Also different states have different purchasing laws. Here in NC you have to have either a pistol purchase permit from your county sheriff's or a concealed carry permit issued by your local county sheriff in order to legally buy a handgun from a store or individual. Even with all the gun owners I've met through classes, our club range, internet forums, gun stores, coworkers and neighbors I've yet to meet or even hear about a gun owner legally buying guns just to turn around and sell them to people who can't buy them legally. I've heard of criminal gangs using members with a clean record to make straw purchases but I think the number of law abiding gun owners selling guns to anyone with no regard for the possibility they could be committing a federal crime is small.
The men I knew that collected firearms, and each had quite a few (meaning 8+), traded and sold at gun shows without any issue, and none of them had a table.
2. The Gunshow Loophole you obliquely refer to is a myth. The only time background checks are not mandated is a private sale between individuals. Any FFL dealer must perform a background check
This is only true insofar as a given gun show does not allow private collectors to have a table of guns "for sale". Which, I believe that has been a trend that, in order to protect themselves from litigation, many Show organizers are tightening down on private sellers, or not allowing them in the first place.
Whether or not gun shows rent tables to private individuals doesn't change the fact that anyone with an FFL has to run a background check and record every sale. I have to record every purchase I make with my C&R FFL whether I buy from a store or individual. Also different states have different purchasing laws. Here in NC you have to have either a pistol purchase permit from your county sheriff's or a concealed carry permit issued by your local county sheriff in order to legally buy a handgun from a store or individual. Even with all the gun owners I've met through classes, our club range, internet forums, gun stores, coworkers and neighbors I've yet to meet or even hear about a gun owner legally buying guns just to turn around and sell them to people who can't buy them legally. I've heard of criminal gangs using members with a clean record to make straw purchases but I think the number of law abiding gun owners selling guns to anyone with no regard for the possibility they could be committing a federal crime is small.
I know about the FFL thing... What I'm saying is that, in the past, there were guys who may have a large collection would show up to a show, rent table space to "display" their firearms, someone would offer cash for one, and they'd make a deal. No FFLs or background checks.
The state I'm in, went extremely heavy handed in "fixing" that problem... They said any transfer of a firearm must have a background check. That in itself wouldn't be so bad, because it would (in theory) be exactly as you describe with your FFL or a regular gun store purchase. The problem is, here in the state they defined transfer in such a way that if you and I are at the range together, I cannot legally allow you to "try out" my pistol or vice versa. A couple museums were forced to return their WW2 and other war collections to the collector, because a museum is not a "person" for transfer purposes, and they must have a legal transfer from the collector to the museum in order to display.
Smacks wrote: It also assumes a very black and white view of morality, where "law abiding" citizens never opportunistically break the law, and become criminals, which is pretty silly, and the opposite of what happens all the time. Criminals are not criminals because they are anyone's "antithesis", they are criminals because they broke the law, by definition. Before that, they are law abiding. How many times have we heard some kid, gunned down by police for knocking over a liquor store, described as "a good kid ... on his way to college" etc... I will agree that there are some people who are born or raised, so unhinged, they are almost destined for prison, but they do not necessarily reflect all (or even most) criminals.
You replied to me so I feel like I need to say something, but all I can say is good point, very well made.
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TheCustomLime wrote: I guess the question I'm trying to ask is how many deaths a nation wide firearm ban would prevent and would that decrease justify the rights of citizens being taken away. My problem with gun control people is that they seem to believe that the root cause of violence in the United States is the availability of firearms. While that may be a contributing factor it is short sighted to think that is the biggest factor. I would argue bigger factors to our high homicide rates are poverty and a failing mental health care system.
Poverty is certainly the major factor.
Mental health not so much. It isn't the major factor in mass shootings (only 23% off mass shooters in the US had any history of mental health problems), and so among all murders it's a tiny factor.
But here's the thing - the rest of the developed world has poverty as well, and our mental health systems are just as underfunded. And yet we've all got murder rates around 1 per 100,000, and the US stands alone among developed countries with a rate 4 or 5 times that. The one thing the US has that stands out is the guns.
That doesn't mean that gun bans or restrictions are necessarily the answer. There's been a good argument that with the number of guns already out there, bans would be impractical and/or ineffective. And there's also a very good argument that lots of hobbies come with strong downsides - alcohol is believed to kill around 80,000 people a year, but banning that is obviously a terrible idea - to some extent you just have to accept there'll be negative consequences to the stuff we like to do.
But having that conversation first relies on accepting the reality that guns really are the reason the US has a much higher rate than the rest of the developed world.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: I actually really, really like my current state's "castle doctrine". I've talked to a number of folks in the know, and basically if a person here has a legal right to be where they are, they have the legal right to defend where they are. One of the best "cases" where judges upheld this view, a man was in Pioneer square in Seattle, a homeless/deranged man came sprinting across the square screaming "I'm going to kill you!! Im going to fething kill you!!" and tackled the first man, who happened to be legally carrying his pistol. In the ensuing ground scuffle, the first man was able to free an arm and shoot, and kill the deranged/homeless man. There did happen to be a Seattle PD officer just around the corner, who heard the guy screaming his "imma kill you!" thing, but by the time he got close enough, the shot had been fired.
Basically, the state upheld it's "don't back down" or "castle doctrine" or whatever name you want to give it, citing that the person who was concealed carrying, had a legal right to be in Pioneer Square and therefore was not obligated to retreat, leave, deescalate or anything.
I also like Indiana's castle doctrine law, and the fact that here there is no obligation to retreat "if the person reasonably believes that that force is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to the person or a third person or the commission of a forcible felony. No person in this state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting the person or a third person by reasonable means necessary.". Being legally compelled to retreat can be very disadvantageous to the victim of an attack as turning your back on an assailant significantly diminishes your ability to protect yourself.
Smacks wrote: I think the only legitimate difference is one of persuasive language. It's like the difference between the ministry of defence and the ministry of war... It's exactly the same ministry. If you go into a shop and buy a gun for "home defense", the implication is that you are preparing and willing to shoot someone, who you have determined is a threat. You are making yourself ready to meet that threat with deadly force. That doesn't sound like the behaviour of someone who is earnestly planning to avoid and retreat.
Duty to retreat as you put it does not exist in the same form as you understand it in every jurisdiction. As an aside if I am within my own home why should I be expected to retreat? The "ready to blow someone away" just read like hyperbole, and perhaps I misread your intentions as most people who oppose private gun ownership, and the use of guns for self-defense, often attempt to paint their opponents as itching for a chance to shoot someone.
I don't believe it is hyperbole, it's quite a common idiom in the English language for shooting someone. And I think I deliberately chose that turn of phrase, not to vilify gun owners, but to emphasis the lawlessness and violence in that situation. I do not believe violence should be in any way encouraged in a peaceful society. Which is why I think the duty to retreat sets the best example (whether it is employed or not). I do not believe people who own guns for self defense are "itching" to kill someone. I see no need to attack the character of gun owners. That's not something I would agree with.
As for why you should be expected to retreat. I would say the main reason is because staying and fighting is risky. It's true that perhaps you will fight off the criminal, and all will be right with the world, but you might also get yourself killed, or some other bystander hurt, or cause damage to property, or make a mistake and kill someone who isn't trying to hurt you, or maybe just kill a kid who is doing something wrong, but maybe doesn't deserve the death penalty. There are lots of things that can go wrong.
Far better if no one gets hurt, and the next day the police drag the perp out of bed, and give him his due process. I realize that won't always be what happens, but philosophically it seems like the more civilized approach that we should be aiming for.
Dreadclaw69 wrote: Are you trying to compare the lawful exercising of the right to peaceably assemble with a criminal gang gun battle? We already have a system for gun ownership. It's the Second Amendment, and there are many restrictions on it already.
I was just highlighting the fact that guns can cause serious injuries to the general public. Refusing to acknowledge that, and claiming that it is exactly the same as freedom of religion, is just being obtuse.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: I actually really, really like my current state's "castle doctrine". I've talked to a number of folks in the know, and basically if a person here has a legal right to be where they are, they have the legal right to defend where they are. One of the best "cases" where judges upheld this view, a man was in Pioneer square in Seattle, a homeless/deranged man came sprinting across the square screaming "I'm going to kill you!! Im going to fething kill you!!" and tackled the first man, who happened to be legally carrying his pistol. In the ensuing ground scuffle, the first man was able to free an arm and shoot, and kill the deranged/homeless man. There did happen to be a Seattle PD officer just around the corner, who heard the guy screaming his "imma kill you!" thing, but by the time he got close enough, the shot had been fired.
Basically, the state upheld it's "don't back down" or "castle doctrine" or whatever name you want to give it, citing that the person who was concealed carrying, had a legal right to be in Pioneer Square and therefore was not obligated to retreat, leave, deescalate or anything.
Maybe I'm reading that wrong but that sounds like a legitimate self defense, regardless of the castle doctrine. A duty to retreat, is not the same as a duty to not defend yourself. In the UK if someone tackled me to the ground yelling "i'll kill you" and I happened to have a gun on me, and shot that person during a scuffle on the ground, and a policeman witnessed the whole thing. There's a very good chance I would not be prosecuted for that. Though I may face charges for having the gun, if it isn't being carried legally.
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Dreadclaw69 wrote: Being legally compelled to retreat can be very disadvantageous to the victim of an attack as turning your back on an assailant significantly diminishes your ability to protect yourself.
A duty to retreat does not mean turning your back on an assailant. It means that if you have a chance to escape the situation without altercation then you should take it. If trying to escape would put you at greater risk of injury, then I would not class that as "a chance to escape", so there would be no duty to turn your back.
Smacks wrote: It also assumes a very black and white view of morality, where "law abiding" citizens never opportunistically break the law, and become criminals, which is pretty silly, and the opposite of what happens all the time. Criminals are not criminals because they are anyone's "antithesis", they are criminals because they broke the law, by definition. Before that, they are law abiding. How many times have we heard some kid, gunned down by police for knocking over a liquor store, described as "a good kid ... on his way to college" etc... I will agree that there are some people who are born or raised, so unhinged, they are almost destined for prison, but they do not necessarily reflect all (or even most) criminals.
You replied to me so I feel like I need to say something, but all I can say is good point, very well made.
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TheCustomLime wrote: I guess the question I'm trying to ask is how many deaths a nation wide firearm ban would prevent and would that decrease justify the rights of citizens being taken away. My problem with gun control people is that they seem to believe that the root cause of violence in the United States is the availability of firearms. While that may be a contributing factor it is short sighted to think that is the biggest factor. I would argue bigger factors to our high homicide rates are poverty and a failing mental health care system.
Poverty is certainly the major factor.
Mental health not so much. It isn't the major factor in mass shootings (only 23% off mass shooters in the US had any history of mental health problems), and so among all murders it's a tiny factor.
But here's the thing - the rest of the developed world has poverty as well, and our mental health systems are just as underfunded. And yet we've all got murder rates around 1 per 100,000, and the US stands alone among developed countries with a rate 4 or 5 times that. The one thing the US has that stands out is the guns.
That doesn't mean that gun bans or restrictions are necessarily the answer. There's been a good argument that with the number of guns already out there, bans would be impractical and/or ineffective. And there's also a very good argument that lots of hobbies come with strong downsides - alcohol is believed to kill around 80,000 people a year, but banning that is obviously a terrible idea - to some extent you just have to accept there'll be negative consequences to the stuff we like to do.
But having that conversation first relies on accepting the reality that guns really are the reason the US has a much higher rate than the rest of the developed world.
Are you using statistics of total murders or just murder by firearms? If you're using total murder rate per capita then you can't just blame the difference entirely on guns. Granted, the US is an armed society and that is inherently more dangerous but it's not simply because of the availability of firearm ownership.
Poverty is certainly a big factor in the root cause of crime and the US is several times larger than the other western countries we get compared to. Australia has a population of approximately 23 million people while California alone has over 38 million people. New York City has over 8 million people. We have more people, more urban areas, more urban poverty and more people living in poverty than other western countries because we've got around 340 million people living here. The USDA Food and Nutrition Service reports that as of September 2014, there were around 46.5 million individual food stamp recipients (22.7 million households) which is twice the population of Australia even though it's still less than 15% of our total population. While greater access to firearms will always result in more people being armed and being able to abuse their right to be armed and for criminals to obtain guns it doesn't change the fact that guns are inanimate objects and can't force or motivate people to do anything. Having tens of millions of people living in socio-economic conditions that are suboptimal and condone or promote criminal behavior and poor choices can and does influence people and their motivations and choices. In 2013, the official poverty rate was 14.5 percent, down from 15.0 percent in 2012. This was the first decrease in the poverty rate since 2006. In 2013, there were 45.3 million people in poverty. For the third consecutive year, the number of people in poverty at the national level was not statistically different from the previous year’s estimate.
https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/
The fact that poverty is a major factor in generating crime and that we have twice the population of your entire country living in poverty but only 4 times the murder rate just shows that crime isn't a big problem in our country. Violent crime has consistently declined in recent decades while income inequality and number of people living in poverty has increased. Of course some of the increase in poverty can be attributed to changing thresholds and definitions by the government making assistance available to more people but the govt statistics and definitions are the most comprehensive and consistent source of information on the subject.
Prestor Jon wrote: we have twice the population of your entire country living in poverty but only 4 times the murder rate just shows that crime isn't a big problem in our country
That's not how "murder rate" works. The rate is the number of people murdered per 100,000 people. You're confusing it with the actual number of people murdered. America is roughly 15 times as populated as Australia, so the amount of people in poverty is irrelevant to the rate. It's better to look at the percentage of the total population in poverty, and compare that. Australia has around 13% of its population in poverty, whereas America has about 15%. That's not a significant difference when looking at murder rates per 100,000 inhabitants, and cannot possibly account for the discrepancy between 1.1 and 4.7.
But having that conversation first relies on accepting the reality that guns really are the reason the US has a much higher rate than the rest of the developed world.
Do you have actual evidence that this is the case? Because as far as I have seen there is zero evidence that guns are the cause. Especially when gun ownership and crime are on opposite trends lately.
Prestor Jon wrote: Are you using statistics of total murders or just murder by firearms? If you're using total murder rate per capita then you can't just blame the difference entirely on guns. Granted, the US is an armed society and that is inherently more dangerous but it's not simply because of the availability of firearm ownership.
The overall murder rate is four or five times higher than other developed countries. If you look just at firearm murders then it becomes a much worse ratio. Hell, if you want you can compare US firearm murders to murders of all kinds in other developed countries, and the US is still much higher.
Poverty is certainly a big factor in the root cause of crime and the US is several times larger than the other western countries we get compared to. Australia has a population of approximately 23 million people while California alone has over 38 million people. New York City has over 8 million people. We have more people, more urban areas, more urban poverty and more people living in poverty than other western countries because we've got around 340 million people living here.
It's measured per capita. So you take total murders, divide by total population, and multiply by 100,000. In the US that comes out around 4 to 4.5, depending on the year. In other developed countries you get rates from .8 to 1.2.
And yes, poverty is the biggest factor, but it's the biggest factor in all the other developed countries as well. Why would you think you're the only country with poor people? Go travel, I'll give you a list of places that are just as bad as the US. Hell, I can take you to rural communities that will make you genuinely angry at my country for letting people live like that.
We've all got poverty, but you're the only developed country with a murder rate that's so high.
While greater access to firearms will always result in more people being armed and being able to abuse their right to be armed and for criminals to obtain guns it doesn't change the fact that guns are inanimate objects and can't force or motivate people to do anything.
Of course, each person makes an individual choice. But it shouldn't be too hard to figure out that when you make a choice much more convenient and immediate, then across a whole population they're going to make that choice more often.
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Grey Templar wrote: Do you have actual evidence that this is the case? Because as far as I have seen there is zero evidence that guns are the cause.
People who don't want to see the evidence don't see it. Shocking, I know.
Especially when gun ownership and crime are on opposite trends lately.
Murder and other violent crime is on a long term decrease everywhere. Because the best way to reduce it is with education and prosperity, and those things are improving long term.
But while murder is going down everywhere, in the US its still vastly higher than other developed countries. People like to invent reasons in their head to satisfy themselves that it couldn't possibly be the guns everywhere that leads to loads of people getting shot, but their reasons are always very weak.
Again, we'll need actual evidence that having more guns causes more murders. Because trends are showing the exact opposite. As more guns get owned, we have less violence overall. (Note: I am not claiming they are related. In fact, the evidence shows there is no relationship)
Just saying "you have more guns, you have more murders. Ergo it must be cause and effect!" is very stupid. To believe that, you must also believe that Ice Cream consumption causes people to commit murder, when in actuality its just the heat level causing both to go up and down.
I think the reason some people are asking for a universal gun registry is not to take guns from lawful citizens, but to figure out where all the weapons criminals are using come from. There has to be a moment where a legal gun turns into an illegal one: if it can be traced, we can hopefully intercede.
But it is good to hear why some people are so against it.
AdeptSister wrote: I think the reason some people are asking for a universal gun registry is not to take guns from lawful citizens, but to figure out where all the weapons criminals are using come from. There has to be a moment where a legal gun turns into an illegal one: if it can be traced, we can hopefully intercede.
But it is good to hear why some people are so against it.
Thats how it begins. So innocently.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - CS Lewis
Prestor Jon wrote: You can't just blame the difference entirely on guns. Granted, the US is an armed society and that is inherently more dangerous but it's not simply because of the availability of firearm ownership.
I don't think anyone has ever claimed that it's all because of guns. Yet a lot of people seem to claim that it's definitely 100% not because of guns at all, even though I think they know deep down that it is a little bit because of guns.
It doesn't change the fact that guns are inanimate objects and can't force or motivate people to do anything.
This has been shown over and over again to be untrue. People frequently do bad/stupid things out of spontaneity, or when they are highly emotional, or high/drunk. Making things less convenient does deter people, it gives them time to cool down. It has been shown for example, that suicide barriers not only stop people from jumping at a particular site, but also decrease the overall suicide rate in the surrounding area. So you can't just say that people will find a way no matter what, because they don't. That takes determination, and not everyone can be bothered with hard stuff. On the other hand if your wife's nagging you, and being a bitch for the millionth time, maybe reaching for the old gun, and pulling the trigger a few times is just a bit too easy.
I feel a good example of this was Vester Lee Flanagan, who recently shot a reporter on live TV. Turns out they were former colleagues, and he had some kind of vendetta, which I guess was his motive. But what I find striking is that he also shot Vicki Gardner who was just there doing an interview, because why the hell not? He didn't have any vendetta against her, I doubt they'd ever even met, but he shot her anyway, because she was there and it was easy. Had he been forced to go to any effort to hurt Vicki Gardner, I doubt he would have bothered.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - CS Lewis.
Are we back on the slippery slop argument? Yes, it would be so much better to live under robber barrons, than register your firearm, and you're not at all overreacting.
Considering the average person is on about 200 databases, which probably know everything from your favorite colour to your porn habits, I don't see how keeping a record of lethal weapons, is going to be the most invasive, useless, or the database that is suddenly going to drop us into tyranny.
Smacks wrote: I don't see how keeping a record of lethal weapons, is the database that is going to suddenly drop us into tyranny.
Remember Canada has done this with a number of firearms, and when a certain "scary" type later on becomes illegal, well... Guess what?? The gov't. knows exactly where to go.
Which GT and probably some others have mentioned: the Govt should not be in the business of knowing everything that I own.
AdeptSister wrote: I think the reason some people are asking for a universal gun registry is not to take guns from lawful citizens, but to figure out where all the weapons criminals are using come from. There has to be a moment where a legal gun turns into an illegal one: if it can be traced, we can hopefully intercede.
But it is good to hear why some people are so against it.
Thats how it begins. So innocently.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - CS Lewis
AdeptSister wrote: And here is the rub where the disagreement lies: Is the government knowing where all the guns are a violation of the 2nd amendment?
I would think that it's not really a violation of the 2nd, but I think it would be a violation of the 4th, as it is often used in your right to privacy. This, in some way was argued in Olmstead (which I know wasn't really overturned until the 60s with the Katz case.
Prestor Jon wrote: Are you using statistics of total murders or just murder by firearms? If you're using total murder rate per capita then you can't just blame the difference entirely on guns. Granted, the US is an armed society and that is inherently more dangerous but it's not simply because of the availability of firearm ownership.
The overall murder rate is four or five times higher than other developed countries. If you look just at firearm murders then it becomes a much worse ratio. Hell, if you want you can compare US firearm murders to murders of all kinds in other developed countries, and the US is still much higher.
Poverty is certainly a big factor in the root cause of crime and the US is several times larger than the other western countries we get compared to. Australia has a population of approximately 23 million people while California alone has over 38 million people. New York City has over 8 million people. We have more people, more urban areas, more urban poverty and more people living in poverty than other western countries because we've got around 340 million people living here.
It's measured per capita. So you take total murders, divide by total population, and multiply by 100,000. In the US that comes out around 4 to 4.5, depending on the year. In other developed countries you get rates from .8 to 1.2.
And yes, poverty is the biggest factor, but it's the biggest factor in all the other developed countries as well. Why would you think you're the only country with poor people? Go travel, I'll give you a list of places that are just as bad as the US. Hell, I can take you to rural communities that will make you genuinely angry at my country for letting people live like that.
We've all got poverty, but you're the only developed country with a murder rate that's so high.
While greater access to firearms will always result in more people being armed and being able to abuse their right to be armed and for criminals to obtain guns it doesn't change the fact that guns are inanimate objects and can't force or motivate people to do anything.
Of course, each person makes an individual choice. But it shouldn't be too hard to figure out that when you make a choice much more convenient and immediate, then across a whole population they're going to make that choice more often.
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Grey Templar wrote: Do you have actual evidence that this is the case? Because as far as I have seen there is zero evidence that guns are the cause.
People who don't want to see the evidence don't see it. Shocking, I know.
Especially when gun ownership and crime are on opposite trends lately.
Murder and other violent crime is on a long term decrease everywhere. Because the best way to reduce it is with education and prosperity, and those things are improving long term.
But while murder is going down everywhere, in the US its still vastly higher than other developed countries. People like to invent reasons in their head to satisfy themselves that it couldn't possibly be the guns everywhere that leads to loads of people getting shot, but their reasons are always very weak.
You claim that poverty is the major factor behind crime and I point out that the US has twice as many people living in "poverty" than you have in your entire country and somehow that gets construed as me claiming that the US is the only country with poor people? If poverty causes crime then the fact that we have 46.5 million people living in poverty is more of a factor in our crime rate than guns. More crimes are committed without gun than with guns.We have 88.8 guns per 100 people, Australia has 15 so that 6x more guns but we don't have 6x more gun crime. Considering the different state laws we have here there are many parts of the US where there are far more guns per 100 people than the national average of 88.8 and other areas with far less.
Chicago makes it extremely difficult for private citizens to get concealed carry permits yet certain low income neighborhoods in Chicago have an extremely high murder rate and a high volume of gun crime. Contrast that with my rural town in North Carolina where it is relatively easy to own a plethora of firearms and many citizens do, while there is less gun crime in the entire county I live in than there is in one bad weekend in Chicago. If high ratios of gun ownership caused high murder rates and incidences of crimes committed with guns then that should be reflected in the crime stats in the different states with different levels of gun ownership but it isn't. The difference in gun crimes/murder between the US and Australia should also be reflected in the crime stats of states like Oklahoma and New Jersey but it isn't.
It's measured per capita. So you take total murders, divide by total population, and multiply by 100,000. In the US that comes out around 4 to 4.5, depending on the year. In other developed countries you get rates from .8 to 1.2.
And yes, poverty is the biggest factor, but it's the biggest factor in all the other developed countries as well. Why would you think you're the only country with poor people? Go travel, I'll give you a list of places that are just as bad as the US. Hell, I can take you to rural communities that will make you genuinely angry at my country for letting people live like that.
We've all got poverty, but you're the only developed country with a murder rate that's so high.
I think attributing the higher murder rate in the US vs places like Australia simply to guns is oversimplifying things. Looking at the data, the rate of non-firearm related homicides in the US (per 100,000) was nearly identical to the entire Australian homicide rate with all weapons, including firearms.
Now, for the sake of argument, we'll accept that using a firearm in an attempted murder is more likely to result in an actual homicide and may contribute to a higher homicide rate out of all attempted homicides. However, even if we assume this, it must also be realized that many of the firearm related homicides would have occurred even without firearms and simply been carried out with a different type of weapon.
With that knowledge, it's fairly easy to see that the US has a greater problem with violence in general, regardless of weapons. Even removing every firearm homicide and assume none of them would have occurred with a different type of weapon, The US homicide rate was about identical (a slightly higher or lower depending on source, but generally within 10%) to Australia's homicide rate even including guns.
So, even if we accept that firearms result in a larger number of deaths, I would posit that the issue of firearms is a symptom of a larger issue, in that homicide and attempted homicide is simply more prevalent on a nation-wide scale.
AdeptSister wrote: And here is the rub where the disagreement lies: Is the government knowing where all the guns are a violation of the 2nd amendment?
Many would consider it to be. Such registries have, in the past, been used to confiscate weapons by otherwise law abiding citizens and to act on additional restrictions. A great example was California's "assault weapons" ban, where people who owned weapons with certain characteristics or specifically named had to register them with the state. A certain type was added later (an SKS variant) and the people who owned them had to register them after initially being told that the ban did not apply to that particular weapon. Later it came down that, while yes the weapon was covered under the ban, re-opening the registry was not, and thus after attempting to comply with the law, had to surrender their weapons after being caught in a catch-22. Additionally, with this registry, it's proven basically impossible to get off of it, even after selling or destroying the weapons, which can cause a variety of legel issues.
Prestor Jon wrote: You can't just blame the difference entirely on guns. Granted, the US is an armed society and that is inherently more dangerous but it's not simply because of the availability of firearm ownership.
I don't think anyone has ever claimed that it's all because of guns. Yet a lot of people seem to claim that it's definitely 100% not because of guns at all, even though I think they know deep down that it is a little bit because of guns.
It doesn't change the fact that guns are inanimate objects and can't force or motivate people to do anything.
This has been shown over and over again to be untrue. People frequently do bad/stupid things out of spontaneity, or when they are highly emotional, or high/drunk. Making things less convenient does deter people, it gives them time to cool down. It has been shown for example, that suicide barriers not only stop people from jumping at a particular site, but also decrease the overall suicide rate in the surrounding area. So you can't just say that people will find a way no matter what, because they don't. That takes determination, and not everyone can be bothered with hard stuff. On the other hand if your wife's nagging you, and being a bitch for the millionth time, maybe reaching for the old gun, and pulling the trigger a few times is just a bit too easy.
I feel a good example of this was Vester Lee Flanagan, who recently shot a reporter on live TV. Turns out they were former colleagues, and he had some kind of vendetta, which I guess was his motive. But what I find striking is that he also shot Vicki Gardner who was just there doing an interview, because why the hell not? He didn't have any vendetta against her, I doubt they'd ever even met, but he shot her anyway, because she was there and it was easy. Had he been forced to go to any effort to hurt Vicki Gardner, I doubt he would have bothered.
No, it's still literally impossible for inanimate objects, like guns, to incite people to commit crimes. People making bad decisions when they are emotional, drunk, high or whatever is still an act of free will by those people. Somebody chooses to murder somebody because they want to, for whatever reason, not just because they have a gun. Are you seriously arguing that Flanagan shot Gardner solely because he happened to be holding a gun and she was nearby? That literally having possession of a pistol made him want to shoot somebody? That's simply not possible. People make bad decisions all the time and it's not due to inanimate objects. If somebody becomes angry enough to commit domestic violence and proceeds to punch other people in the room besides his/her spouse/significant other it's not because he/she had already made a fist. Shooting somebody is a conscious deliberate act. Knives don't make anyone stab people, guns don't make anyone shoot anyone. True, guns are a tool that make it easier to hurt people, just like knives, chainsaws, hammers, baseball bats, rocks and millions of other things but none of them can cause anyone any harm until a person makes a deliberate conscious choice to pick them up and use them to inflict harm.
Smacks wrote: This seems to be where the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument falls flat on its face anyway. I certainly never heard of anyone getting "stabbed in the crossfire".
Prestor Jon wrote: You can't just blame the difference entirely on guns. Granted, the US is an armed society and that is inherently more dangerous but it's not simply because of the availability of firearm ownership.
I don't think anyone has ever claimed that it's all because of guns. Yet a lot of people seem to claim that it's definitely 100% not because of guns at all, even though I think they know deep down that it is a little bit because of guns.
It doesn't change the fact that guns are inanimate objects and can't force or motivate people to do anything.
This has been shown over and over again to be untrue. People frequently do bad/stupid things out of spontaneity, or when they are highly emotional, or high/drunk. Making things less convenient does deter people, it gives them time to cool down. It has been shown for example, that suicide barriers not only stop people from jumping at a particular site, but also decrease the overall suicide rate in the surrounding area. So you can't just say that people will find a way no matter what, because they don't. That takes determination, and not everyone can be bothered with hard stuff. On the other hand if your wife's nagging you, and being a bitch for the millionth time, maybe reaching for the old gun, and pulling the trigger a few times is just a bit too easy.
I feel a good example of this was Vester Lee Flanagan, who recently shot a reporter on live TV. Turns out they were former colleagues, and he had some kind of vendetta, which I guess was his motive. But what I find striking is that he also shot Vicki Gardner who was just there doing an interview, because why the hell not? He didn't have any vendetta against her, I doubt they'd ever even met, but he shot her anyway, because she was there and it was easy. Had he been forced to go to any effort to hurt Vicki Gardner, I doubt he would have bothered.
No, it's still literally impossible for inanimate objects, like guns, to incite people to commit crimes. People making bad decisions when they are emotional, drunk, high or whatever is still an act of free will by those people. Somebody chooses to murder somebody because they want to, for whatever reason, not just because they have a gun. Are you seriously arguing that Flanagan shot Gardner solely because he happened to be holding a gun and she was nearby? That literally having possession of a pistol made him want to shoot somebody? That's simply not possible. People make bad decisions all the time and it's not due to inanimate objects. If somebody becomes angry enough to commit domestic violence and proceeds to punch other people in the room besides his/her spouse/significant other it's not because he/she had already made a fist. Shooting somebody is a conscious deliberate act. Knives don't make anyone stab people, guns don't make anyone shoot anyone. True, guns are a tool that make it easier to hurt people, just like knives, chainsaws, hammers, baseball bats, rocks and millions of other things but none of them can cause anyone any harm until a person makes a deliberate conscious choice to pick them up and use them to inflict harm.
The homicide rate can be higher with a greater proliferation of firearms, because bystanders can be hurt in the crossfire. Kinda like the article in the OP. Yes, the gang members made a conscious decision to shoot at each other, but they (almost certainly) didn't intend to hit one of the people who later died.
Also, I feel I have to address this.
People making bad decisions when they are emotional, drunk, high or whatever is still an act of free will by those people.
Oh, boy. When you're drunk or high, you are no longer capable of rational thought, and free will is an interesting idea when you're in a suggestive and unstable state. If you want to go through with your statement above, and blame drunk people for committing murder, all of the time (which can't happen in some cases and states, intoxication removing the rational thought, therefore criminal intent which is often a prerequisite), try thinking about what other crimes could be affected by claiming intoxication has no bearing on free will, and you should accept the full consequences of your actions.
Drunk/high people can still be charged with murder if they kill someone. But the lack of direct intent does lessen the charge, thats why we have several levels of murder.
Grey Templar wrote: Drunk/high people can still be charged with murder if they kill someone. But the lack of direct intent does lessen the charge, thats why we have several levels of murder.
Yeah, I know. It's really just the idea that intoxicated people have free will that irritated me. I'm sure rapists will rejoice to hear that!
Grey Templar wrote: Drunk/high people can still be charged with murder if they kill someone. But the lack of direct intent does lessen the charge, thats why we have several levels of murder.
Yeah, I know. It's really just the idea that intoxicated people have free will that irritated me. I'm sure rapists will rejoice to hear that!
You can look at it this way. If you voluntarily consumed the intoxicating material you are responsible for whatever you do afterwards.
Grey Templar wrote: Drunk/high people can still be charged with murder if they kill someone. But the lack of direct intent does lessen the charge, thats why we have several levels of murder.
Yeah, I know. It's really just the idea that intoxicated people have free will that irritated me. I'm sure rapists will rejoice to hear that!
Intoxicated people are still responsible for their actions. It has nothing to do with intoxicated rape victims since the absence of consent still makes it rape regardless of the whether or not the victim is intoxicated. Drunk drivers are still responsible for people they kill in car accidents even though they probably would have acted/driven differently if they had been sober. And intoxicated people still have free will. People control their own actions, alcohol impairs judgement, yes, but it doesn't control people like a puppeteer.
Smacks wrote: I don't believe it is hyperbole, it's quite a common idiom in the English language for shooting someone. And I think I deliberately chose that turn of phrase, not to vilify gun owners, but to emphasis the lawlessness and violence in that situation. I do not believe violence should be in any way encouraged in a peaceful society. Which is why I think the duty to retreat sets the best example (whether it is employed or not). I do not believe people who own guns for self defense are "itching" to kill someone. I see no need to attack the character of gun owners. That's not something I would agree with.
Blowing someone away sounds like either;
- the gun owner is taking glee in what they do
- is minimizing the killing of another human being
Smacks wrote: As for why you should be expected to retreat. I would say the main reason is because staying and fighting is risky. It's true that perhaps you will fight off the criminal, and all will be right with the world, but you might also get yourself killed, or some other bystander hurt, or cause damage to property, or make a mistake and kill someone who isn't trying to hurt you, or maybe just kill a kid who is doing something wrong, but maybe doesn't deserve the death penalty. There are lots of things that can go wrong.
Staying and fighting is risky, but turning your back on an assailant or assailants so you cannot defend yourself is less risky? What if I am in my home? Should that duty to retreat include abandoning my property?
Suppose the victim is in a wheelchair, or otherwise physically impaired. What then?
Smacks wrote: Far better if no one gets hurt, and the next day the police drag the perp out of bed, and give him his due process. I realize that won't always be what happens, but philosophically it seems like the more civilized approach that we should be aiming for.
Running away, leaving yourself defenseless, and at the mercy of someone else is "civilized"? Yearning for a Utopian society is your prerogative. For people who have violent ex-partners, live in crime ridden neighbourhoods, etc. I'd prefer that they have the means to defend themselves and their loved ones.
Smacks wrote: I was just highlighting the fact that guns can cause serious injuries to the general public. Refusing to acknowledge that, and claiming that it is exactly the same as freedom of religion, is just being obtuse.
Using criminal activity as a yardstick to measure law abiding citizens rights is disingenuous in the extreme.
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Smacks wrote: Considering the average person is on about 200 databases, which probably know everything from your favorite colour to your porn habits, I don't see how keeping a record of lethal weapons, is going to be the most invasive, useless, or the database that is suddenly going to drop us into tyranny.
Given that many already object to being so closely monitored your argument makes little sense.
Round round we go.
Same ole thing
Same ole stats used
Same point; counter point but with some variation
I remember when the MAC10 hit the streets. Took on the same scary tune as the M4 today (assault rifles)
Then Teflon bullets
Reagan getting shot
Then the 9mm Berreta went main stream which idiots attempt to shoot side ways.....no idea where they got that idea from
Then Hollow Points became a issue being its small entry huge exit
Then those two hardcore bank robbers with body armor and automatic AK's
Bill Clinton gun ban going into effect (10 years I think limit)
Smacks wrote: I don't believe it is hyperbole, it's quite a common idiom in the English language for shooting someone. And I think I deliberately chose that turn of phrase, not to vilify gun owners, but to emphasis the lawlessness and violence in that situation. I do not believe violence should be in any way encouraged in a peaceful society. Which is why I think the duty to retreat sets the best example (whether it is employed or not). I do not believe people who own guns for self defense are "itching" to kill someone. I see no need to attack the character of gun owners. That's not something I would agree with.
Blowing someone away sounds like either; - the gun owner is taking glee in what they do - is minimizing the killing of another human being
Or neither of the above. What you subjectively choose to read into it is your own concern. I have stated numerous times, in clear language (which you even seem to have quoted, but not read) that I have no wish, or need, or intention of attacking the character of gun owners. Yet you continually attack my character by insisting that I am one of the people who thinks all gun owners are secretly psychos, despite the fact that I have never claimed that, I flatly disagree with that, and think such a claim about gun owners is nonsense. When you tar me with the same brush as the people who do make those claims, you are no better than them, tarring all gun owners with the same brush as murderers.
If you wanted to argue honestly, then you would accept that when I tell you "this is my opinion", that I know my own opinion better than you. Instead of insisting, like a dog with a bone, that I think something which I do not. Despite the absolute world authority on my opinions (me) telling you that you are wrong.
Putting your own words in my mouth, just so you can attack them is the very definition of a strawman.
Staying and fighting is risky, but turning your back on an assailant or assailants so you cannot defend yourself is less risky? What if I am in my home? Should that duty to retreat include abandoning my property? Suppose the victim is in a wheelchair, or otherwise physically impaired. What then?
As I have already said (which you ignored) a duty to retreat has nothing to do with turning your back on an assailant. If there is no opportunity to retreat then self defense is justified. That's how it works in the UK. You don't seem to be able to distinguish between actively trying to avoid conflict, and self sacrifice. One does not imply the other.
As for property. If your life is in danger and you need to evacuate (such as a fire, or other emergency) stopping to rescue property is not advised, and can lead to you or others being killed. If you value property over your life then you might need to do some serious reevaluation. Also there are loads of good ways to protect property, you can get a safe, get a safety deposit box, get home insurance, get a security door. Arguing that the only way to protect property is with a gun, and that's why you really really need a gun, is so much BS.
On the subject of people who can't defend themselves. What if someone is under 21, and too young for concealed carry? Males between 13 and 21 are the most likely to be victims of violent crime, and yet your system offers them nothing. Are you going to allow 13 year olds to go around armed too?
Yearning for a Utopian society is your prerogative. For people who have violent ex-partners, live in crime ridden neighbourhoods, etc. I'd prefer that they have the means to defend themselves and their loved ones.
You would see the people who threaten them armed, without impediment, and you advocate making the weak responsible for their own defense, rather than working towards a safer environment for them.
Grey Templar wrote: Again, we'll need actual evidence that having more guns causes more murders. Because trends are showing the exact opposite.
In any complex relationship you'll never get a nice, direct cause and effect. Demanding clear evidence of that relationship and accepting nothing else is just setting up an impossible standard, because you don't like where all the existing evidence is pointing.
It's the con the cigarette companies pulled for a generation.
As more guns get owned, we have less violence overall. (Note: I am not claiming they are related. In fact, the evidence shows there is no relationship)
By your suggested relationship only the total number of guns matter, so it means if one household buys 30 guns then it would have the same reduction in murder as 30 households buying a gun each. Which is obviously silly, and so instead we should look at the number of households with guns against the murder rate. And looking at that will tell you that while the number of guns is increasing, the number of households with guns is falling. At which point your narrative about 'more guns and less murders therefore...' falls apart entirely.
Just saying "you have more guns, you have more murders. Ergo it must be cause and effect!" is very stupid
Only if we have no comparison cases. But we have lots of comparison cases of countries with very similar other factors (education, wealth, quality of policing etc) and they have murder rates 4 or 5 times lower than the US.
Again, it's like smoking. Long before we had any clear understanding of how smoking causes cancer, we knew from basic population studies that while lots of things increase the chance of cancer, if you control for those other factors and compare smokers to non-smokers, the smoking group got cancer way more often than the non-smoking group. That doesn't meet your standard, obviously, but it's far stronger than the evidence we have for many things we assume as obviously proven.
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Prestor Jon wrote: You claim that poverty is the major factor behind crime and I point out that the US has twice as many people living in "poverty" than you have in your entire country and somehow that gets construed as me claiming that the US is the only country with poor people?
No. Stop this. I refuse to believe that you cannot understand how per capita works, and why it is used in place of total population counts.
If poverty causes crime then the fact that we have 46.5 million people living in poverty is more of a factor in our crime rate than guns.
Of course. Poverty is the biggest factor, alongside education (and those two are very closely related). But for it to be the explanation for the higher rate of murder in the US, then the US would have to have a uniquely higher rate of poverty than other developed countries. To explain a murder rate that's four times higher, it would need to have a poverty rate that's four times higher.
But lets look at some figures. The percentage of people in the US living below the poverty line is 15.1%. So to explain a murder rate that's four times higher than other developed countries, you'd need other developed countries to have poverty rates around 4%. So... Germany is 15.5%, the UK is 14%, Japan is 16%, Denmark is 14%. France is much lower, at 6%, and Canada is 10%, but those are the only ones on the list with lower poverty rates. But to look at that and conclude US poverty drives their four times higher murder rate is just completely and totally wrong.
Chicago makes it extremely difficult for private citizens to get concealed carry permits yet certain low income neighborhoods in Chicago have an extremely high murder rate and a high volume of gun crime. Contrast that with my rural town in North Carolina where it is relatively easy to own a plethora of firearms and many citizens do, while there is less gun crime in the entire county I live in than there is in one bad weekend in Chicago. If high ratios of gun ownership caused high murder rates and incidences of crimes committed with guns then that should be reflected in the crime stats in the different states with different levels of gun ownership but it isn't. The difference in gun crimes/murder between the US and Australia should also be reflected in the crime stats of states like Oklahoma and New Jersey but it isn't.
No, because local bans on firearms are meaningless when you've got open borders. Australia banned guns and while you can still smuggle weapons in, you do have to get them past customs, which requires skill, connections, and a willingness to risk a reasonable chance of getting caught and going to jail. But Chicago is a state within a union with completely open borders - monitoring of goods across state lines are minimal at best, let alone across city lines. And so whatever ban is put in place, it doesn't stop guns flowing in to the city. At best it means there's risk for carrying once you're in the city, but bringing the guns in is both easy and very safe.
The only effective ban in the US has to be on a national level.
Hordini wrote: Which is all the more reason why it's a bad idea and shouldn't happen.
I didn't say whether I think it should happen. I've written a whole lot about that elsewhere, and my feelings on the merits of any kind of gun ban are somewhere between dubious and ambivalent.
But I am curious as to what you're saying. Are you saying that because state bans would be ineffective, then any ban would be bad because it would have to be at the federal level? Is it basically a state's rights thing?
Hordini wrote: Which is all the more reason why it's a bad idea and shouldn't happen.
I didn't say whether I think it should happen. I've written a whole lot about that elsewhere, and my feelings on the merits of any kind of gun ban are somewhere between dubious and ambivalent.
But I am curious as to what you're saying. Are you saying that because state bans would be ineffective, then any ban would be bad because it would have to be at the federal level? Is it basically a state's rights thing?
Oh, I know, and I know you have written on it else where, as have I. I didn't intend for my post to sound accusatory.
I don't really want to invoke the term state's rights and bring up all the baggage that comes with it, and I don't necessarily think that all federal regulations are bad, but I do think that a blanket federal ban on something like firearms would, by it's very nature, be unjust. Primarily because the situations in different states vary so widely. The reasoning and potential need of someone living in rural Alaska, for example, or even just in certain areas in the Midwest, to be able to acquire firearms with relatively minimal hassle has the potential to be much different than someone in New York, Chicago, or LA. Note that I am generally pro-second amendment and do not think that someone living in New York, Chicago, or LA should have their second amendment rights stripped from them. But I do have an even bigger problem with some sort of federal gun ban that would restrict the rights of people all over the country based on the fact that we have several large urban centers such as the previously mentioned cities that have serious problems with violent crime. A federal gun ban of some sort, would seem to me to be something that was focused on symptoms rather than causes, and I don't think that people who live in areas in which they have to deal with large and potentially dangerous wildlife, and/or extremely long police response times need to have any more limits placed on their ability to own and purchase firearms.
Hordini wrote: Oh, I know, and I know you have written on it else where, as have I. I didn't intend for my post to sound accusatory.
Cool, and I didn't want to sound accusatory either, as I realise my use of 'state's rights' might have sounded.
And you make a very good point. I guess part of it if federal bans focused on pistols, which are frequently used used in crime, and useless for hunting and sub-optimal for home defence. But that wouldn't remove the issue entirely, and given the recent focus of gun control efforts it's pretty optimistic to think they'd focus there.
And to expand on your point about different circumstances in different states, it isn't just an issue for any potential bans, it's also a factor for any potential control measures. So a registration and recording system might seem quite viable in Chicago and New York, but be really impractical for people living in rural areas, where government services are a lot more scarce.
And to expand on your point about different circumstances in different states, it isn't just an issue for any potential bans, it's also a factor for any potential control measures. So a registration and recording system might seem quite viable in Chicago and New York, but be really impractical for people living in rural areas, where government services are a lot more scarce.
Aye, that sort of divide is rather sharp in the US. Many states are dominated by a few (in same cases, just one) metro areas. New York is probably the most stark example, where NYC might as well be its own state, or Oregon where you have Portland and "everything else" and half the population of the state (which has more land area than Scotland) lives in or around one city. In most of these cases the big metro areas also happen to typically be very ok with increased gun control measures (to the point where getting a gun of any sort in NYC, legally, is basically impossible) while the "everything else" is usually on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Smacks wrote: You would see the people who threaten them armed, without impediment,
Given that you just accused me of strawmanning the argument the irony is delicious
Smacks wrote: and you advocate making the weak responsible for their own defense, rather than working towards a safer environment for them.
You make it sound like giving people the means to defend themselves is a bad thing. Are you objecting to giving weaker people the ability to defend themselves as you work "towards a safer environment"?
But keep plugging away at false dilemmas and nirvana fallacies.
Smacks wrote: You would see the people who threaten them armed, without impediment,
Given that you just accused me of strawmanning the argument the irony is delicious
I didn't just accuse you, it was what you were doing. And where is the irony? Do you, or do you not keep saying that guns are a human right, and that the right should not be infringed? Does that not mean that any citizen should be able to buy a gun without restriction, no questions asked? How have I misrepresented your position? Isn't that exactly what you always argue for, and why you are so vocally against gun control?
You make it sound like giving people the means to defend themselves is a bad thing. Are you objecting to giving weaker people the ability to defend themselves as you work "towards a safer environment"?
Arguing that the solution to gun violence is more guns, is like arguing that the solution to a noisy room is to shout louder. In the short term it might work, and you can make yourself heard for a bit, but in the long term you're just adding to the noise of the room, and forcing everyone else to shout too. If you want people with a weak voice to be able to hold their own, then the solution is to turn the volume down, not hand out megaphones.
Smacks wrote: I didn't just accuse you, it was what you were doing. And where is the irony? Do you, or do you not keep saying that guns are a human right, and that the right should not be infringed? Does that not mean that any citizen should be able to buy a gun without restriction, no questions asked? How have I misrepresented your position? Isn't that exactly what you always argue for, and why you are so vocally against gun control?
That was exactly my point.... if you omitted any prior references I made to criminals, the mentally ill, and other disqualified people to being prohibited from possessing firearms. Otherwise great strawman.
Smacks wrote: Arguing that the solution to gun violence is more guns, is like arguing that the solution to a noisy room is to shout louder. In the short term it might work, and you can make yourself heard for a bit, but in the long term you're just adding to the noise of the room, and forcing everyone else to shout too. If you want people with a weak voice to be able to hold their own, then the solution is to turn the volume down, not hand out megaphones.
False equivalence leading into a Nirvana fallacy
Then again I should have known what to expect from any exchange with you when you attempted to claim that two criminal gangs trying to kill each other was somehow an exercise of Second Amendment rights. You may continue to hold your opinion as you see fit. I have attempted, on occasion too numerous to count, to use facts, reason, evidence, and logic to discuss this with you in good faith hoping for at least an honest discussion. To date that has been fruitless so I see no point in attempting to engage with you.
You make it sound like giving people the means to defend themselves is a bad thing. Are you objecting to giving weaker people the ability to defend themselves as you work "towards a safer environment"?
Arguing that the solution to gun violence is more guns, is like arguing that the solution to a noisy room is to shout louder. In the short term it might work, and you can make yourself heard for a bit, but in the long term you're just adding to the noise of the room, and forcing everyone else to shout too. If you want people with a weak voice to be able to hold their own, then the solution is to turn the volume down, not hand out megaphones.
Saying that law abiding citizens should have the right to own guns and exercise self-defense when necessary is not the same thing as claiming that the solution to gun violence is more guns.
You make it sound like giving people the means to defend themselves is a bad thing. Are you objecting to giving weaker people the ability to defend themselves as you work "towards a safer environment"?
Arguing that the solution to gun violence is more guns, is like arguing that the solution to a noisy room is to shout louder. In the short term it might work, and you can make yourself heard for a bit, but in the long term you're just adding to the noise of the room, and forcing everyone else to shout too. If you want people with a weak voice to be able to hold their own, then the solution is to turn the volume down, not hand out megaphones.
Try graphing overall homicide rate vs gun ownership rates for all the world's nations sometime. It's relatively easy to find with a little digging, the UN publishes statistics on both. Not every nation is included (for example, a lot of middle eastern nations are missing because the various wars have made it a nightmare to calculate homicide rates), but you'll find two things if you go through the effort:
1. There's a general negative relationship between gun ownership rate and overall homicide rates. That is to say, the more guns there are, the lower the homicide rate tends to be.
2. The data is so scattered that anyone who's ever taken a statistics class should immediately see that there's no meaningful correlation between the two stats.
From that, you can pretty easily conclude that gun ownership rate has very little influence on overall homicide rates, but that there is a slight relationship (which may be guns acting as a deterrent, but is more likely related to the fact that impoverished nations have lots of crime but few guns, while developed nations often have high gun ownership rates but very, very, very low crime).
If you do a little more digging, you will find some instances in which gun control measures have dropped the gun homicide rate. Fewer guns, fewer homicides with guns. However, in each instance of this that I've ever seen, including both Canada and Australia's widespread gun control measures, the gun control measures only decreased the gun homicide rate, but the overall homicide was unaffected. Criminals simply used more knives, blunt objects, etc. The same is true of suicides (suicide by gun would decrease, but the overall rate remained the same as people simply committed suicide by other means).
So, in a sense, the claims by both sides of the aisle are true; more guns tends to mean less crime, but fewer guns also means fewer gun homicides. Both arguments are, to a degree, red herrings. In the big picture, it's almost trivial to demonstrate that gun ownership has nothing to do with the overall homicide rate, or the overall violent crime rate. Violent crime and homicide is almost exclusively driven by something else (hint: social inequality and/or divisive political situations such as wars, racial conflicts, etc). You want to stop crime? Don't waste your time on meaningless gun control measures. Start working on welfare reforms or something instead.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Although, TBF, there are people who do think that. They're pretty much universally regarded as wack-jobs though.
Sadly, that is true. However I do think that number of people is much lower than many anti-gun people seem to suggest. What I find frustrating is that many anti-gun/pro-gun control people hear someone say "Law abiding citizens should maintain the right to own firearms and exercise self-defense" and they hear "more guns are the answer to every problem." It's really strange. It's like some people already have an idea in their head about what gun owners are and aren't actually interested in learning about the issue or listening to what many gun owners are actually saying.
Smacks wrote: I didn't just accuse you, it was what you were doing. And where is the irony? Do you, or do you not keep saying that guns are a human right, and that the right should not be infringed? Does that not mean that any citizen should be able to buy a gun without restriction, no questions asked? How have I misrepresented your position? Isn't that exactly what you always argue for, and why you are so vocally against gun control?
That was exactly my point.... if you omitted any prior references I made to criminals, the mentally ill, and other disqualified people to being prohibited from possessing firearms. Otherwise great strawman.
I think it is you that has a nirvana fallacy, imagining that "criminals", the mentally ill, and domestic abusers will somehow be identified and disqualified before committing a crime.
And, your position being unclear doesn't mean I am strawmaning. You have explained that you don't want criminals and the mentally ill to obtain guns, and I believe you. Even though 2nd amendment rights will always make it near impossible to stop them.
That is not the same as me having to explain to you for two pages in clear language, that I disagree with attacking the character of gun owners, while you completely ignore it and keep punching away at your strawman. Or the time I said the bill of rights wasn't really relevant to one particular discussion, and you completely twisted that around and accused me of saying "the bill of rights is outdated", which you then kept beating for about 3 pages, and I had to repeat myself a ridiculous number of times, and even shout it at you in 22 point bold type, and you still didn't listen, and even brought it up again in another topic! So how dare you accuse anyone of not arguing in good faith.
Lastly, other countries are not "nirvana fallacies". They are "real places", which have lower crime rates than the US.
DarkLink wrote:That word "accused"? I don't think it means what you think it does.
I know what it means, I was just emphasising that the accusation was founded. There is no need to be patronising.
Smacks wrote: I didn't just accuse you, it was what you were doing. And where is the irony? Do you, or do you not keep saying that guns are a human right, and that the right should not be infringed? Does that not mean that any citizen should be able to buy a gun without restriction, no questions asked? How have I misrepresented your position? Isn't that exactly what you always argue for, and why you are so vocally against gun control?
That was exactly my point.... if you omitted any prior references I made to criminals, the mentally ill, and other disqualified people to being prohibited from possessing firearms. Otherwise great strawman.
I think it is you that has a nirvana fallacy, imagining that "criminals", the mentally ill, and domestic abusers will somehow be identified and disqualified before committing a crime.
And, your position being unclear doesn't mean I am strawmaning. You have explained that you don't want criminals and the mentally ill to obtain guns, and I believe you. Even though 2nd amendment rights will always make it near impossible to stop them.
That is not the same as me having to explain to you for two pages in clear language, that I disagree with attacking the character of gun owners, while you completely ignore it and keep punching away at your strawman. Or the time I said the bill of rights wasn't really relevant to one particular discussion, and you completely twisted that around and accused me of saying "the bill of rights is outdated", which you then kept beating for about 3 pages, and I had to repeat myself a ridiculous number of times, and even shout it at you in 22 point bold type, and you still didn't listen, and even brought it up again in another topic! So how dare you accuse me of not arguing in good faith.
Lastly, other countries are not "nirvana fallacies". They are "real places", which have lower crime rates than the US.
DarkLink wrote:That word "accused"? I don't think it means what you think it does.
I know what it means, I was just emphasising that the accusation was founded. There is no need to be patronising.
I think all that would be plenty fair if you just at the same time would admit that American gun policy when at it's most permissive is perfect. As well as the fact american gun culture is a flawless gem among all cultural forces in the world. Ultimately any opinion, "Facts" or "Evidence" that might support a change that is in any way an (real or imagined) inconvenience, delay, revision or other restriction on gun ownership is dishonest, reprehensible and can only have the effect of harming law-abiding citizens especially children.
I think so long as you're not explicitly endorsing these common-sense self-evident truths it's hard to assume you're approaching this topic in good faith.
DarkLink wrote: Try graphing overall homicide rate vs gun ownership rates for all the world's nations sometime. It's relatively easy to find with a little digging, the UN publishes statistics on both. Not every nation is included (for example, a lot of middle eastern nations are missing because the various wars have made it a nightmare to calculate homicide rates), but you'll find two things if you go through the effort:
1. There's a general negative relationship between gun ownership rate and overall homicide rates. That is to say, the more guns there are, the lower the homicide rate tends to be.
2. The data is so scattered that anyone who's ever taken a statistics class should immediately see that there's no meaningful correlation between the two stats.
For starters, the most basic stats understanding will tell you that just putting up countries on a single chart will tell you nothing when other factors also play a major part. So it isn't surprising that when you did just that, you found no clear relationship.
This is like looking for a link between smoking and cancer, and drawing a population across all age groups, and shockingly finding data that included 14 year old smokers and 80 year old non-smokers couldn't pick out a clear relationship between smoking and cancer.
Instead, fairly obviously, you control other factors. To pick out the relationship between smoking and cancer you control for age. Once you compare the 40 year old smokers with the 40 year old non-smokers, the relationship becomes clear. Similarly, with guns while it's much harder to completely control all other factors, if we limit our sample to developed countries (and thereby have some measure of control for poverty, education and policing effectiveness) we see a very clear relationship develop.
Fewer guns, fewer homicides with guns. However, in each instance of this that I've ever seen, including both Canada and Australia's widespread gun control measures, the gun control measures only decreased the gun homicide rate, but the overall homicide was unaffected. Criminals simply used more knives, blunt objects, etc.
Homicide has declined over that period. Now, I won't argue that the gun ban had much or anything to do with it, but that is largely because there weren't many guns in Australia before the ban, and used in few murders. But that doesn't mean you get to claim something that isn't true.
The same is true of suicides (suicide by gun would decrease, but the overall rate remained the same as people simply committed suicide by other means).
Completely false. To understand why, you need to read about suicide, and the importance of triggers. To describe it very quickly, having an object in the house, any object, that a person can strongly associate with the act of suicide. And when that object is able to be used with very little prep time, well then it's no surprise that having a gun in the house is a major predictor of suicide.
So, in a sense, the claims by both sides of the aisle are true; more guns tends to mean less crime, but fewer guns also means fewer gun homicides. Both arguments are, to a degree, red herrings. In the big picture, it's almost trivial to demonstrate that gun ownership has nothing to do with the overall homicide rate, or the overall violent crime rate. Violent crime and homicide is almost exclusively driven by something else (hint: social inequality and/or divisive political situations such as wars, racial conflicts, etc). You want to stop crime? Don't waste your time on meaningless gun control measures. Start working on welfare reforms or something instead.
It's true that other factors, particularly economic factors, are much bigger drivers of homicide than guns. But it's completely false to claim that guns don't play a part.
To return to the smoking analogy, if someone works in a leaking nuclear power plant, then resolving that will help more than quitting smoking. But that doesn't mean smoking doesn't play a part as well.
That doesn't mean ban guns, just as it doesn't mean smoking needs to be banned. But smokers need to be honest about what cigarettes do, and gun owners need to be honest about what gun proliferation does.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Because I get the rest of the week off and this looked like work, I actually did a break down of guns per capita against murders per capita, for the 20 richest developed countries. I excluded Switzerland because they're screwy (high gun ownership but with really strict controls).
The table is hard to read because I don't know html, but the first stat is guns per capita, the second is murders per capita. A straight forward reading splits these countries in to the ten with most guns and the ten with the least guns, and the ten with the most guns have an average murder rate of 1.6, the ten with the least guns have 0.95. Removing the US as a big outlier probably gives a better picture, the other 9 countries with the most guns average 1.25. If we start getting even more stringent and remove the other outliers, Norway for having a high murder rate, and Japan for having a weirdly small murder rate, we shift the averages to 1.02 and 1.14, so even once we've picked out every country that could possibly be seen as outlier, the countries with more guns still have more murders.
I've added two graphs at the bottom, one with the US and one without. The relationship is quite clear.
Japan 0.6 0.3 South Korea 1.1 0.9 Netherlands 3.9 0.9 United Kingdom 6.6 1 Israel 7.3 1.8 Spain 10.4 0.8 Italy 11.9 0.9 Denmark 12 0.8 Australia 15 1.1 Czech Republic 16.3 1 Belgium 17.2 1.6 New Zealand 22.6 0.9 Finland 29.1 1.6 Germany 30.3 0.8 Austria 30.4 0.9 Canada 30.8 1.6 France 31.2 1 Norway 31.3 2.2 Sweden 31.6 0.7 United States 88.8 4.7
Co'tor Shas wrote: Although, TBF, there are people who do think that. They're pretty much universally regarded as wack-jobs though.
Sadly, that is true. However I do think that number of people is much lower than many anti-gun people seem to suggest. What I find frustrating is that many anti-gun/pro-gun control people hear someone say "Law abiding citizens should maintain the right to own firearms and exercise self-defense" and they hear "more guns are the answer to every problem." It's really strange. It's like some people already have an idea in their head about what gun owners are and aren't actually interested in learning about the issue or listening to what many gun owners are actually saying.
Presumably, the problem is that you are not a criminal at birth. Most criminals start out as law abiding citizens who, as you say, have the right to own firearms.
And if the problem is 'Restricting guns would not affect criminals since they will just get them illegally, whereas law abiding citizens won't and will be the punished ones' then the problem is with the police force if they can't stop that.
I do not believe the benefit of having firearms so available outweighs the risks.
And if the problem is 'Restricting guns would not affect criminals since they will just get them illegally, whereas law abiding citizens won't and will be the punished ones' then the problem is with the police force if they can't stop that.
With ~300 million firearms in civilian hands (exceeding the number of automobiless), the practicalities are mind boggling. Furthermore, police forces in the US are generally organized at the local level, unlike most European nations, each municipal police department or county sherrifs office is its own agency with its own priorities and agendas and are not any sort of unified or coordinated whole. Federal agencies like the ATF who's job it is to track things like NFA items (registered automatic weapons, civilian owned destructive devices like cannons & grenades, etc) have had major issues with keeping..."accurate" records, particularly as NFA weapons pass through different owners after multiple decades, sometimes after nearly 80 years in some cases.
Expecting the police to be able to effectively control the sheer number of weapons in civilians hands, and the attitudes of the populace, is probably unrealistic. It certainly hasn't worked with drugs, hasn't worked with IP piracy, didn't work with alcohol, etc.
If there were a very small number of weapons and different social attitudes, then it might be something the police could handle, but that ship sailed (and sank) lifetimes ago.
AdeptSister wrote: I think the reason some people are asking for a universal gun registry is not to take guns from lawful citizens, but to figure out where all the weapons criminals are using come from. There has to be a moment where a legal gun turns into an illegal one: if it can be traced, we can hopefully intercede.
But it is good to hear why some people are so against it.
We know where they're coming from, broadly speaking, because despite the lack of national registries, the ATF and various law enforcement agencies have traced back guns.
Straw purchases, private sales, and robberies, of individuals and (more rarely) gun stores. That's where illegal guns come from.
Ashiraya wrote: Presumably, the problem is that you are not a criminal at birth. Most criminals start out as law abiding citizens who, as you say, have the right to own firearms.
Correct. The Anglo-American judicial system starts with the presumption of innocence. Most criminals who start out as law abiding citizens also have the right to liberty, and should not be incarcerated without a crime being committed. People should only lose their rights when they have committed a crime, and been found guilty. This is one of the hallmarks of living in a free society - that rights are respected and not simply removed for political expediency.
Ashiraya wrote: And if the problem is 'Restricting guns would not affect criminals since they will just get them illegally, whereas law abiding citizens won't and will be the punished ones' then the problem is with the police force if they can't stop that.
I don't believe that any Police force has yet successfully implemented a Pre-Crime Division. Police very rarely stop crime. There are not enough police to be on patrol to do this on a consistent basis. That is why their role is usually most prevalent after the crime has been committed
This thread started because an innocent bystander was killed as two criminal gangs opened fire on each other, and at least one automatic weapon was used. Seeing as criminal gangs are highly unlikely to be able to legitimately purchase a firearm, and that automatic weapons are banned at a State level, I think that this instance is proving that criminals will get their weapons illegally.
Ashiraya wrote: I do not believe the benefit of having firearms so available outweighs the risks.
You are entitled to your opinions, but for my own curiosity I wonder what evidence you relied upon to come to your conclusion
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AdeptSister wrote: I think the reason some people are asking for a universal gun registry is not to take guns from lawful citizens, but to figure out where all the weapons criminals are using come from. There has to be a moment where a legal gun turns into an illegal one: if it can be traced, we can hopefully intercede.
But it is good to hear why some people are so against it.
A study of inmates in Cook County Illinois (where Chicago is located) found that those they interviewed got their firearms from family members, gang members, or bought off the black market - all of which are illegal, and for which strong penalties already exist. Many of the guns used in crime can already be traced without the use of a gun registry.
You are entitled to your opinions, but for my own curiosity I wonder what evidence you relied upon to come to your conclusion
Sebster's huge-ass post a couple of posts above yours is a good start.
That the US would resist gun restrictions simply through inertia (like Vaktathi says) doesn't defend the status quo to me. All it does is making the problem take longer to solve; it does not make the problem less problematic.
You are entitled to your opinions, but for my own curiosity I wonder what evidence you relied upon to come to your conclusion
Sebster's huge-ass post a couple of posts above yours is a good start.
That the US would resist gun restrictions simply through inertia (like Vaktathi says) doesn't defend the status quo to me. All it does is making the problem take longer to solve; it does not make the problem less problematic.
My point is that simply trying to restrict firearms by fiat when they're already available in mind-bogglingly vast quantities amongst a population that does not wish to give them up, is a losing proposition. Quite simply, if your goal is drastically eliminate firearms availability, trying to do it through simple restriction is probably the least effective way to do it. Despite having spent trillions of dollars and employing hundreds of thousands of people in the job, drugs are as available as ever, firearms would not likely be any different. US law enforcement agencies have pretty conclusively proven that they're just not effective in such roles. Firearms are a durable and widely distributed commodity. They last practically forever and the supply is enormous. The best efforts would be economic means (as is happening to cigarettes, they're both more expensive than ever and it's increasingly inconvenient to find a place to use them), rather than legal prohibition and restriction.
You are entitled to your opinions, but for my own curiosity I wonder what evidence you relied upon to come to your conclusion
Sebster's huge-ass post a couple of posts above yours is a good start.
That the US would resist gun restrictions simply through inertia (like Vaktathi says) doesn't defend the status quo to me. All it does is making the problem take longer to solve; it does not make the problem less problematic.
My point is that simply trying to restrict firearms by fiat when they're already available in mind-bogglingly vast quantities amongst a population that does not wish to give them up, is a losing proposition. Quite simply, if your goal is drastically eliminate firearms availability, trying to do it through simple restriction is probably the least effective way to do it. Despite having spent trillions of dollars and employing hundreds of thousands of people in the job, drugs are as available as ever, firearms would not likely be any different. US law enforcement agencies have pretty conclusively proven that they're just not effective in such roles. Firearms are a durable and widely distributed commodity. They last practically forever and the supply is enormous. The best efforts would be economic means (as is happening to cigarettes, they're both more expensive than ever and it's increasingly inconvenient to find a place to use them), rather than legal prohibition and restriction.
Prohibition has never achieved its intended goals at any time in the history of the US. Trying to make it work yet again with guns wouldn't work either.
The crux of the issue here is that the US culture is fundamentally different than that of Europe and Australia. We desire a much higher amount of individual freedom and willingly accept living with cost of that freedom. Someone from the EU, Oz or Canada might look at the US and think that the govt shouldn't be so permissive and allow people to do things like own small arsenals of guns, whereas we've decided, since the founding of our country that the govt doesn't have the right to tell us we can't. Purchasing guns is an act of commerce and we've given the govt the power to control/restrict commerce to a certain extent but we've also set a clear legal precedent that no level of govt can prohibit a law abiding citizen from owning a gun simply because the govt doesn't wish the citizen to possess one.
While a murder rate of 4.5 is higher than other nations, the US has always had a higher murder rate than other Western nations. Due in large part to the fundamental societal differences that set the USA apart from other Western countries. Having a relatively high murder rate isn't a recent phenomenon and the current rate is the lowest it's been in modern history.
In 1960 the US murder rate was 5.1, in 1975 it was 9.6, in 1985 it was 8.0, in 1995 it was 8.2 and in 2005 it was 5.6. Today there are more firearms owned by private citizens than ever before in US history. More states have less restrictive concealed carry laws and more citizens have concealed carry permits than ever. The firearms industry makes more money than ever. Yet the murder rate is half of what it was 20 years ago and has steadily declined for decades. The proliferation of firearms ownership in the US hasn't caused an increase in murder rates, that's an established fact. Neither should the fact that a country, deliberately founded to be different than Europe and other Western nations, is still fundamentally different from other Western nations today in both positive and negative ways. Other people can disagree with or disapprove of our the ways in which our society differs but the majority of the people who live here are happy with it the way it is and it is unlikely to undergo drastic changes anytime soon.
Vaktathi wrote: My point is that simply trying to restrict firearms by fiat when they're already available in mind-bogglingly vast quantities amongst a population that does not wish to give them up, is a losing proposition.
Well, if the majority doesn't want to give them up, then obviously it won't happen because it'd be undemocratic.
Of course, as Chongara says, that is not necessarily the case.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Although, TBF, there are people who do think that. They're pretty much universally regarded as wack-jobs though.
Sadly, that is true. However I do think that number of people is much lower than many anti-gun people seem to suggest. What I find frustrating is that many anti-gun/pro-gun control people hear someone say "Law abiding citizens should maintain the right to own firearms and exercise self-defense" and they hear "more guns are the answer to every problem." It's really strange. It's like some people already have an idea in their head about what gun owners are and aren't actually interested in learning about the issue or listening to what many gun owners are actually saying.
Presumably, the problem is that you are not a criminal at birth. Most criminals start out as law abiding citizens who, as you say, have the right to own firearms.
And if the problem is 'Restricting guns would not affect criminals since they will just get them illegally, whereas law abiding citizens won't and will be the punished ones' then the problem is with the police force if they can't stop that.
I do not believe the benefit of having firearms so available outweighs the risks.
Neither does any benifit from alcohol outweigh the risk and social damage it causes, but there ya go. Prohibition was tried with that and led to a flourishing of the criminal element who wasn't above murder to get to those who wanted it, making those who purchased alcohol accomplices to the murders.
AdeptSister wrote: I am not sure the majority here are happy with the status quo. Wasn't there majority support for a universal background check?
Also, according to Newsweek, only 32% of Americans own a gun or live with someone that does.
100% Americans own guns. That other 78% are just people who happen to live here, but they're not American.
We currently have 7 unrestricted concealed carry states and 35 shall issue states with zero states banning concealed carry. A drastic change from 1986 when 16 states didn't even issue concealed carry permits. The state legislatures and both state and federal courts have struck down restrictive gun laws so the laws and the people's representatives are aligned with upholding the right to bear arms. If people want more gun control why have states steadily moved away from restrictive gun control over the past 30 years?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_carry_in_the_United_States
Polls don't always accurately reflect the will of the people. Exit polling for national elections consistently shows that gun control is a very low priority for voters. Nobody is pro murder. When the media devotes a large amount of coverage to a mass shooting and pundits and activists misconstrue proposed gun laws that would have had no bearing whatsoever on the perpetration of the crime as a panacea for gun crimes then yes you can get people to support in polling. When it comes time to actually pass legislation on stricter gun laws there is rarely enough support to get it done. The few exceptions are in states that already have extremely restrictive gun laws.
If people didn't want to own guns we wouldn't see record numbers of gun sales and concealed carry permits issued and if people really wanted more gun control laws then politicians would pass them.
Vaktathi wrote: My point is that simply trying to restrict firearms by fiat when they're already available in mind-bogglingly vast quantities amongst a population that does not wish to give them up, is a losing proposition.
Well, if the majority doesn't want to give them up, then obviously it won't happen because it'd be undemocratic.
Of course, as Chongara says, that is not necessarily the case.
SCOTUS has recently and consistently ruled that the govt can't prohibit law abiding citizens from owning firearms. The 2nd Amendment exists and must be upheld unless it is repealed. States and municipalities where strict gun control that essentially bans some or all forms of gun ownership have seen those restrictions struck down in court as unconstitutional. Even when there are local majorities for gun control, or at least political climates that don't punish politicians for voting for anti gun legislation, the 2nd Amendment still must be upheld. No govt can actually outright ban guns without first having the states vote to change the constitution. That will probably never happen.
AdeptSister wrote: I am not sure the majority here are happy with the status quo. Wasn't there majority support for a universal background check?
Also, according to Newsweek, only 32% of Americans own a gun or live with someone that does.
100% Americans own guns. That other 78% are just people who happen to live here, but they're not American.
If you have nothing relevant or non-snarky to add to the discussion, why don't you find your way out of this thread?
And as far as that 32% statistic? Where did Newsweek pull that from? Targeted poll? How big was the sampling? Who did they ask?
A quick search on google shows that about a third of Americans own guns, and that fraction used to be much higher. That's from several different polls and surveys, I don't think you'll have an easy time questioning the veracity of that statement.
AdeptSister wrote: I am not sure the majority here are happy with the status quo. Wasn't there majority support for a universal background check?
Also, according to Newsweek, only 32% of Americans own a gun or live with someone that does.
100% Americans own guns. That other 78% are just people who happen to live here, but they're not American.
If you have nothing relevant or non-snarky to add to the discussion, why don't you find your way out of this thread?
And as far as that 32% statistic? Where did Newsweek pull that from? Targeted poll? How big was the sampling? Who did they ask?
A quick search on google shows that about a third of Americans own guns, and that fraction used to be much higher. That's from several different polls and surveys, I don't think you'll have an easy time questioning the veracity of that statement.
Depends on the polling methodology. Gun ownership varies from state to state and even within states. It's virtually impossible for a resident of New York City to legally own a gun however gun ownership in New York state is fairly common. Likewise, a state like New Jersey is both very populous and has strict gun control laws making it very difficult for residents to own guns whereas a state like Montana is less populous but gun ownership is very prevalent and state gun control laws are much more permissive. You could poll people from a group of states that creates a ownershp rate much higher than 32% and you could poll people from a group of states that gives you a much lower rate than 32% so the accuracy in terms of the country depends entirely on how the polling represents different states and regions of the country.
As far as using suicide as a metric for infringing on gun rights the following countries with strict gun control rank above the United States;
- South Korea
- Japan
- Finland
- Belgium
- Iceland
The US ranks at number 50 with 12.1 per 100,000 people. Even if we take the CDC's figure of 13 per 100,000 that is 0.00013%. Suicide by firearm (which I object to being classified as gun violence) accounts for around half of those deaths, or 0.00007%. Without wanting to seem that I am minimizing the loss that these families have suffered that is statistically speaking insignificant.
Ashiraya wrote: That the US would resist gun restrictions simply through inertia (like Vaktathi says) doesn't defend the status quo to me. All it does is making the problem take longer to solve; it does not make the problem less problematic.
The claim, as always, seems to be that guns are the problem - and there is usually little to no evidence of this offered. The overwhelming majority of guns are owned without being used in suicide, the commission of a crime, or any other nefarious purpose.
Prestor Jon wrote: While a murder rate of 4.5 is higher than other nations, the US has always had a higher murder rate than other Western nations. Due in large part to the fundamental societal differences that set the USA apart from other Western countries. Having a relatively high murder rate isn't a recent phenomenon and the current rate is the lowest it's been in modern history.
This argument just doesn't work once you actually know about other countries. The US doesn't have more crime, the rates of property and violent crime are on par with other developed countries. If the US was somehow culturally a more wild place, we'd see it in the overall crime rate. But the rate of property and violent crime in the US is on par with other developed countries. It's just murder where it sits way out on its own.
In 1960 the US murder rate was 5.1, in 1975 it was 9.6, in 1985 it was 8.0, in 1995 it was 8.2 and in 2005 it was 5.6. Today there are more firearms owned by private citizens than ever before in US history. More states have less restrictive concealed carry laws and more citizens have concealed carry permits than ever. The firearms industry makes more money than ever. Yet the murder rate is half of what it was 20 years ago and has steadily declined for decades. The proliferation of firearms ownership in the US hasn't caused an increase in murder rates, that's an established fact.
Once again, the decline in the murder rate in the US tracks with other developed countries, where improvements in living standards, education and policing are the major factors. None of that changes anything at all with the basic reality that if the US had far fewer guns the murder rate would be much closer to other developed countries.
Neither should the fact that a country, deliberately founded to be different than Europe and other Western nations, is still fundamentally different from other Western nations today in both positive and negative ways. Other people can disagree with or disapprove of our the ways in which our society differs but the majority of the people who live here are happy with it the way it is and it is unlikely to undergo drastic changes anytime soon.
Absolutely, and this is a really good argument for guns. So people should stick to that argument and similar ones, and stop with the really gakky nonsense stats that pretend gun proliferation doesn't lead to increased murder.
AdeptSister wrote: I am not sure the majority here are happy with the status quo. Wasn't there majority support for a universal background check?
Also, according to Newsweek, only 32% of Americans own a gun or live with someone that does.
100% Americans own guns. That other 78% are just people who happen to live here, but they're not American.
America - We're so America there's 110% of us
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Relapse wrote: Neither does any benifit from alcohol outweigh the risk and social damage it causes, but there ya go.
Clearly you're going to the wrong parties.
That's not just a joke, by the way, I am saying that there's a whole lot of social benefit from alcohol - it helps a lot of people have a whole lot of fun.
And the same can be argued for guns, of course.
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Prestor Jon wrote: Depends on the polling methodology. Gun ownership varies from state to state and even within states. It's virtually impossible for a resident of New York City to legally own a gun however gun ownership in New York state is fairly common. Likewise, a state like New Jersey is both very populous and has strict gun control laws making it very difficult for residents to own guns whereas a state like Montana is less populous but gun ownership is very prevalent and state gun control laws are much more permissive.
That's why you weight respondents against state populations. I don't know how you couldn't have figured that out for yourself. I mean, polling is complex and subjective but not because it's hard to balance against state populations.
And the figure showing about a third of homes in the US having a gun is hardly a new figure, that number has been pretty consistent across polls for a long time now.
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Dreadclaw69 wrote: At least he admitted that reducing the number of firearms in Australia had little impact on crime
'At least he admitted'... wow.
Anyhow, I'll expand on this in the hope that you are genuinely attempting to debate and discuss. The stricter gun laws in Australia had little effect because gun murder in Australia was very small anyway. There was about 300 murders in Australia, and firearm murders halved from around 20 to around 10 each year. That isn't going to show up as much effect on the overall murder rate, and be swamped by the overall trend in the murder rate caused by other factors.
The difference in the US is that guns are used in about 2/3 of murders, a much higher proportion out of a much higher total figure of 12,000 to 14,000 pa. If there was some magical way that a US gun ban could wipe the country clean of guns, and it had a similar impact on the number of firearm murders as Australia, you'd see gun murders go from 8,000 to 4,000, and the total murder rate drop from 12,000 to 8,000. Which would be a massive change.
At which point we move on to a polite request to please read the articles that you link to.
"He said that because of law changes, the new guns were not military-style semi-automatics, which were banned and surrendered after Port Arthur, and that handguns were now harder to import into Australia." The weapons that were banned and handed in at the amnesty are still banned, and still barely seen in the country.
Which means the point you tried to make was completely rejected by the article.
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Dreadclaw69 wrote: The claim, as always, seems to be that guns are the problem - and there is usually little to no evidence of this offered. The overwhelming majority of guns are owned without being used in suicide, the commission of a crime, or any other nefarious purpose.
And now we're at the tactic of ignoring the evidence when presented, and then complaining that no evidence has been given.
It's right fething there. Accept it, fit it into your worldview, and fething move on. Cigarettes cause cancer, and gun proliferation increases the murder rate. You can build all kinds of reasonable arguments in spite of those realities, but you can't deny the realities themselves.
The "we know guns increase the murder rate, and as a society are OK with that, even though we like to pretend otherwise" is probably the most honest summary.
After all, we already know that generally we're hypocrites as far as what our stated public policy vs what we're actually willing to enact. We know that as a nation with an obesity epidemic, we need to make some noises about our nationwide devotion to all things deep fried, but if a public figure (like Michelle Obama or the NY governor, whats his name) tries to actually make it into policy, people lose their gak. We claim that we hate attack ads in politics, but they overwhelmingly work, we claim we hate how our goivernment is always gridlocked, and then elect people who honestly promise on the campaign trail to consider doing exactly that. We say we hate abortions, but also demonize and slash benefits for low income people who can't afford the kids they already have. Look at the ACA, and common core, and so on. As a nation we love to bemoan our problems and simultaneously protest against any reforms to address them.
And now we're at the tactic of ignoring the evidence when presented, and then complaining that no evidence has been given.
It's right fething there. Accept it, fit it into your worldview, and fething move on.
Your graphic seems to be missing some vital information, namely what is it actually meant to show
sebster wrote: Cigarettes cause cancer, and gun proliferation increases the murder rate. You can build all kinds of reasonable arguments in spite of those realities, but you can't deny the realities themselves.
That was an absolutely beautiful false equivalence between cigarettes and guns.
But lets look at this reality that seems to be hampering those reasonable arguments of gun owners shall we?
Gun ownership has been increasing for a protracted period of time
Given that "gun proliferation increases the murder rate" surely there must be some correlation with murders, and at the very least we should see an increase, right?
Well, look at that. Reality says that gun proliferation does not in fact increase the murder rate
Lets look at some more breakdown of the numbers. This shows us the homicide rate based on city.
That certainly puts a fly in the ointment that "gun proliferation increases the murder rate". The top 2 are cities that have incredibly strict gun control laws. The same for at least half of the table. Surely if "gun proliferation increases the murder rate" we would see that the cities with the strongest gun control measures would be the safest.
Maybe we should look at another country, maybe that will tell us another story. Lets look at Australia
Ok, so after the gun buy back we see that homicides did decline.... 8 years later. What makes this more interesting is that after the buy back gunownership increased to it's pre-ban levels - http://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-reloads-as-gun-amnesties-fail-to-cut-arms-20130113-2cnnq.html Using your "gun proliferation increases the murder rate" then surely this would mean that if the level of gun ownership remained static that the homicide rate should also. But it decreased instead.
Looks like gun proliferation does not increase the murder rate. Accept it, fit it into your worldview, and kindly move on
We're in the same stupid cycle as always, both sides saying they have the stats for whatever reason, the other side disagreeing and saying they actually do, and we've moved well on from the original topic apart from the odd "well it wouldn't have changed gang violence, like the OP" then back to stats arguments.
What I'm saying is that, 100% of gun threads that I posted this exact message in got locked.
